Ethereum Foundation sells 5,000 ETH to Tom Lee's BitMine in $10 million OTC deal

The Ethereum Foundation sold 5,000 ETH at an average price of $2,042.96 to BitMine Immersion Technologies, the world’s largest publicly traded ETH treasury company.
The deal is the EF’s second known OTC sale to a corporate buyer, following a 10,000 ETH sale to SharpLink Gaming in July 2025.
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The Ethereum Foundation said Saturday it finalized an over-the-counter sale of 5,000 ETH, worth approximately $10.2 million, to BitMine Immersion Technologies.

The average price was $2,042.96 per ETH, roughly in line with current market levels. The onchain transaction will come from an EF Safe multisig wallet, the foundation said in a post on X.

BitMine (NYSE American: BMNR), chaired by Fundstrat's Tom Lee, is the world's largest publicly traded ETH treasury company, holding over 4.5 million ETH valued at roughly $9.3 billion, according to The Block's treasury tracker. The company has been aggressively accumulating ETH since mid-2025, modeling its strategy after MicroStrategy's bitcoin playbook.

The deal marks the second time the EF has sold ETH directly to a corporate treasury buyer via OTC. In July 2025, the foundation sold 10,000 ETH to SharpLink Gaming at an average price of $2,572.37, a deal worth $25.7 million.

The foundation said proceeds will fund core operations, including protocol R&D, development of the Ethereum ecosystem, and community grants. These periodic sales are governed by the EF's treasury policy, published in June 2025, which outlined a framework for the organization to periodically sell ETH to maintain a fiat-denominated operating reserve. Under that policy, the EF targets 15% of its treasury as annual operating spend with a 2.5-year runway buffer.
The OTC approach avoids the public exchange sell pressure that drew community backlash last September, when the EF announced plans to sell 10,000 ETH via centralized exchanges. DeFi community members at the time argued the foundation should instead borrow against its ETH or use OTC channels.
The sale also comes weeks after the EF began staking a portion of its treasury, with plans to deploy roughly 70,000 ETH into validators using open-source infrastructure from Bitwise Onchain Solutions.

Ether was trading at approximately $2,075 at the time of the announcement, according to The Block's Ethereum Price Page.