Tom Lee sells Vitalik Buterin for $21 million with 51,162 ETH purchase
TLDR
Bitmine acquired 51,162 ETH in one week, pushing the total holdings to 4.42M tokens worth $8.6 billion.
Vitalik Buterin sold over 9,715 ETH in February 2026, for a total of over $21M as ETH fell below $2,000.
Tom Lee cited tokenization, AI adoption, and the creative economy as the main reasons to buy ETH during the dip.
Bitmine's staking operations now generate $171M per year, with projections for MAVAN totaling $249M.
Tom Lee's Bitumen Immersion Technologies made a bold move last week, gaining 51,162 ETH amid a broad market rally.
When Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin racked up millions of ETH, Lee's company was buying power.
As ETH continues to trade below $2,000, the contrarian strategies have caught the attention of crypto market watchers.
Tom Lee doubles on ETH when prices slide
Tom Lee, who serves as Bitmine's chairman, recently publicly addressed the current crypto crash in a company statement.
“In the midst of this ‘mini crypto winter,' our focus is on strategically implementing our treasury strategy and acquiring ETH,” Lee said. Instead of pulling back, Bitmine went ahead with one of its strongest one-week buys ever.
Lee made his conviction on Ethereum clear, pointing to three fundamental drivers.
“Wall Street and their efforts in tokenization, AI and agentic-AI using smart blockchains, and the emerging creative economy's interest in using blockchain for authentication,” he explained. These factors, in his view, make the current dip a buying window rather than a warning sign.
“Last week we got 51,162 ETH,” confirmed Lee. “Bitcoin is buying Ethereum because we view this reversal as attractive.”
He added that “the price of ETH does not reflect the high utility of ETH and its role in the financial future”, which strengthens the company's long-term position.
Vitalik Buterin's sales spree puts pressure on the price of ETH
While bitumen was piling up, a very different story was unfolding on the other side of the market. Crypto analyst Krypto Patel noted the move on social media, saying, “After a 2-week hiatus, Vitalik Buterin now withdraws $6.95M from Ave worth 3,500 ETH to sell. Buterin started selling 571 ETH soon after he took off.”
After this earlier sale on February 5, Buterin raised $19.84 million when it sold 9,144 ETH at approximately $2,170 per token.
As ETH fell below $2,000 during the sale, Patel said in his post that the total amount sold was 9,715+ ETH (~$21M+) in February. The timing reinforced the negative sentiment surrounding ETH at an already sensitive moment in the market.
Patel's post openly questions the motivation behind the move, “Is Ethereum's founder losing confidence… or does he know something we don't?” he asked.
The post drew sharp reactions from the crypto community, with many arguing that the selloff reflected routine portfolio management or something more. Either way, the move added pressure on assets struggling to hold key price levels.
Bitcoin's staking strategy will continue to generate revenue regardless
Despite softening prices, Bitmine's stock operations continue to generate steady income. “Annualized earnings per share now reach $171 million,” he said, adding that Bitcoin's own stock operations yielded a seven-day yield of 2.89 percent, better than the broader composite Ethereum holdings of 2.81 percent. The company currently has 3,040,483 ETH shares, worth approximately $6 billion.
Lee continued, “On balance, when Bitmine's ETH is fully shared by MAVAN and its shareholders, the ETH share awards are $249 million per year.
MAVAN, the Made in America Verifier Network, remains on track to launch in early 2026. Bitmin is currently working with three external staking providers as it prepares to fully deploy its platform.
Bitmine's total holdings, including $691 million in cash, a $200 million stake in Beast Industries, and a $17 million position in Eightco Holdings, bring his total portfolio to $9.6 billion.
With Li aggressively buying while Buterin sells, the two figures now represent opposite ends of the Ethereum narrative.
