ETH Breaks Below $1,900 + Vitalik Sells Off Holdings, While Wall Street’s Top 10 Banks Simultaneously Increase Bitmine Stock Positions

Author: Lance Datskoluo

Translated by: TechFlow

TechFlow Intro: Vitalik Buterin has been consistently selling ETH—and over the past weekend alone, he offloaded $8 million worth. He characterizes this as proactive fundraising during Ethereum’s “moderate contraction phase.” Interestingly, during this same period, ten major Wall Street institutions—including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley—are increasing their Ethereum exposure by purchasing shares of Bitmine. While the founder sells, institutions buy—a divergence that itself is the most telling signal in today’s ETH market.

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According to on-chain tracking platform Arkham, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sold over $8 million worth of tokens from his personal wallet last weekend.

As of this report’s publication, he continues to sell large quantities of ETH. On-chain data shows he is converting ETH into stablecoins via the decentralized exchange Cow Swap, in batches of up to approximately $85,000 each.

This latest sale extends Buterin’s roughly $7 million ETH disposal in early February. At that time, he stated the proceeds would fund new initiatives, as Ethereum enters a “moderate contraction phase” over the next five years to achieve its goals.

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s price has plunged over 60% from its August peak of $4,950—a decline mirroring the broader crypto market’s collapse, which has wiped out $2 trillion in market capitalization.

Buterin’s roadmap includes securing the blockchain’s long-term future and ensuring Ethereum becomes a “scalable world computer without sacrificing decentralization.”

In January, he announced plans to sell approximately 16,384 ETH, allocating the proceeds “toward these goals over the coming years.”

Over the past week, he published several lengthy posts on X covering artificial intelligence, language models, and security—hinting at even greater ambitions for Ethereum.

Institutional Buying on the Dip

Of course, while the figurehead of this blockchain is selling, numerous prominent players are actively increasing their Ethereum exposure.

Among them are crypto pioneer Erik Voorhees and Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee—both executed eight-figure purchases over the past week.

Last week, Lee cited Wall Street’s tokenization push and AI tools’ growing use of Ethereum as key catalysts, citing enhanced “product-market fit” for Ethereum as his bullish rationale.

“Ethereum’s neutrality, combined with 100% uptime and reliability, clearly positions it to capture significant market share,” he stated.

Wall Street’s largest banks are backing Lee’s view with concrete action.

SEC Form 13-F filings show that BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, ARK Invest, Goldman Sachs, State Street, Vanguard, Bank of America, Charles Schwab, Citigroup, and BNY Mellon all increased their holdings of Bitmine stock in Q4 2025.