BlackRock is doubling down on Ethereum by buying up more Bitmine shares during the market dip, the firm disclosed on Thursday.
The asset manager’s Bitmine holdings surged by 166% to $246 million in the fourth-quarter of 2025, according to a 13F-HR form filed with the SEC, Fintel data shows.
Tom Lee, the chair of Bitmine who predicts $250,000 per Ethereum, commented on the move with clapping emojis in a post on X.
BlackRock’s big vote of confidence comes as Ethereum’s price has fallen by 60% from its August peak to trade at just under $2,000.
And the price could plunge another 25% to $1,400, Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital assets research at the British bank Standard Chartered, said in an investor note shared with DL News.
Bitmine is the second-largest digital asset treasury company that mostly holds Ethereum. Its share price, which represents a levered bet on Ethereum, has also plunged nearly 70% over the past six months to $20 per share.
Crypto industry pioneers have dumped their Ethereum tokens en masse in February.
Vitalik Buterin, the blockchain’s co-founder, dumped at least $7 million worth last week in order to fund new initiatives. Stani Kulechov, founder of decentralised finance platform Aave, sold off over $8 million worth of world’s second largest cryptocurrency.
And Bitmine itself is underwater at least $6.6 billion on its Ether purchases.
Yet Wall Street’s best have been buying the dip. On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs disclosed it now owns just over $1 billion in Ethereum exchange-traded funds.
“The best investment opportunities in crypto have presented themselves after declines,” Lee said on Monday after Bitmine purchased another $80 million worth of Ethereum.
Still bullish
Poor market performance isn’t denting BlackRock’s conviction in the second-largest cryptocurrency.
In January, the firm said that Ethereum will lead the tokenisation of real-world assets.
It cited the fact that some 66% of all tokenised assets are on Ethereum, dwarfing Binance’s BNB Chain ecosystem which commands 10%. Far behind are Solana at 5%, Arbitrum at 4%, Stellar at 4%, and Avalanche at 3%.
In January, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink described tokenisation as necessary while speaking on a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Switzerland.
Crypto market movers
Bitcoin is down 0.7% over the past 24 hours, trading at $66,582.
Ethereum is down 0.4% past 24 hours at $1,955.
What we’re reading
Aave Labs proposes paying DAO all revenue from Aave-branded products — DL News
The superstars attending Trumps’ World Liberty Forum on February 18 — DL News
UNI Spikes on BlackRock DeFi Move, Then Gives It All Back — Unchained
The Structural Bull Case for Crypto in a Changing Liquidity Regime w/ Jamie Coutts — Milk Road
Why Tether is forecast ‘flippening everything’ as Bitcoin and Ethereum prices tumble — DL News
Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.
