While stocks and gold push to fresh highs, one of the most important assets in crypto is quietly being treated like a clearance sale.
Ethereum is trading roughly 40% below its peak, and for some of the biggest players in finance, that gap isn’t a warning sign—it’s an invitation.
At the center of that buying spree is Bitmine, the digital asset treasury firm chaired by longtime crypto bull Tom Lee.
$118 Million More Ethereum—And Counting
On Monday, Bitmine revealed it had purchased another $118 million worth of Ethereum, lifting its total ETH holdings to approximately $12.5 billion.
The timing is striking.
The broader crypto market remains over $1 trillion below its October record, even as macro tailwinds have propelled equities and gold to all-time highs. Ethereum itself has struggled to reclaim $3,000 since November, a level that once acted as firm support.
For Bitmine, that disconnect is precisely the opportunity.
Over the past month alone, the firm has deployed more than $500 million into Ethereum, executing a series of nine-figure weekly buys while sentiment remains cautious.
Why Ethereum’s Underperformance Is Attracting Buyers
Ethereum’s recent price action looks weak on the surface. Beneath it, institutions see something else entirely.
According to Tom Lee, Ethereum’s outperformance relative to Bitcoin since October reflects a deeper structural shift.
“Investors are recognizing that tokenisation and other use cases being developed by Wall Street are being built on Ethereum,” Lee said.
That thesis explains why capital is flowing into ETH even as prices lag.
In January alone, investors bought $102 million worth of Ethereum-backed exchange funds, according to DefiLlama. Corporate treasuries and ETFs now collectively hold around $18 billion in Ethereum.
Staking: The Quiet Yield Engine
Bitmine isn’t just buying and holding.
The firm has already staked nearly $6 billion worth of Ethereum, positioning itself to generate consistent on-chain yield. At current levels, Bitmine projects around $1 million per day in staking revenue.
That yield component is a critical difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin in institutional portfolios. ETH isn’t just a speculative asset—it’s increasingly treated as productive infrastructure.
Lee put it bluntly:
“Ethereum remains the most widely used by Wall Street today and the most reliable blockchain, with zero downtime since inception.”
Wall Street’s Ethereum Vote Is Getting Louder
Bitmine isn’t acting alone. Ethereum’s institutional backing is becoming difficult to ignore.
Some of the world’s largest financial institutions—BlackRock, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Visa—have all signaled confidence in Ethereum as the foundation for tokenised finance.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink made tokenisation a central theme of his remarks.
“We would be reducing fees, we would do more democratisation,” Fink said.
“If we have one common blockchain, we could reduce corruption.”
BlackRock later named Ethereum as its top blockchain for tokenisation in the firm’s 2026 outlook.
From Davos to JPMorgan: Ethereum Goes Mainstream
Lee said one of his key takeaways from Davos was unmistakable:
“Wall Street has embraced crypto and blockchain assets and sees the convergence of traditional assets and digital assets. And similarly between crypto and AI convergence.”
That shift is already showing up in real products.
In December, JPMorgan selected Ethereum for its first-ever tokenised money market fund—a category the Bank for International Settlements values at $9 trillion.
That choice wasn’t symbolic. It was operational.
A $250,000 Ethereum Thesis
Tom Lee has never been shy about his outlook. He continues to project $250,000 per ETH, a forecast that sounds extreme until placed in context.
If Wall Street’s tokenisation push materializes:
Trillions in real-world assets migrate on-chain
Ethereum becomes core financial infrastructure
Staking turns ETH into a yield-bearing reserve asset
From that perspective, today’s price looks less like a ceiling and more like a discount.
The Bigger Signal Investors Shouldn’t Ignore
Ethereum’s price may be struggling, but institutional behavior isn’t.
While retail waits for momentum, billion-dollar treasuries are accumulating, staking, and building around Ethereum’s rails. The smart money isn’t chasing breakouts—it’s positioning for infrastructure adoption.
History shows that markets often reprice fundamentals after the accumulation phase is complete.
If that pattern holds, Ethereum’s 40% discount may not last nearly as long as many expect.