Will $2.3B options expiry jolt Ethereum price from key strike levels?

Ethereum price continues to lag its 2021 peak as institutions rotate cautiously into ETH exposure while weighing ETF flows, on-chain activity, and broader macro risk.

BlackRock is leaning into the pain on Ethereum (ETH) price, quietly ramping up its exposure to Bitmine even as blue‑chip crypto names slide and prominent insiders head for the exits.​

BlackRock’s leveraged Ethereum bet

According to a 13F‑HR filing collated by Fintel, BlackRock’s Bitmine stake jumped 166% in Q4 2025 to about $246 million, cementing the asset manager as a key backer of the Ethereum‑heavy treasury vehicle. Bitmine, the second‑largest digital asset treasury firm and a levered proxy on Ether, has seen its own stock price crater nearly 70% over six months to roughly $20 per share. The move drew an approving response from Bitmine chair Tom Lee, who has publicly floated a $250,000 price target for Ethereum and responded with clapping emojis to the disclosure in a post on X.

BlackRock’s buying spree lands as Ethereum trades just under $2,000, roughly 60% below its August peak, with Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick warning the token could drop a further 25% toward $1,400. “The best investment opportunities in crypto have presented themselves after declines,” Lee said on Monday, after Bitmine added another $80 million of Ether to its already underwater position, which is sitting on at least $6.6 billion in paper losses.

Insiders sell, Wall Street buys

February has seen crypto pioneers unload sizable Ether positions, even as Wall Street leans in. Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin sold at least $7 million worth of ETH last week to fund new initiatives, while Aave founder Stani Kulechov offloaded more than $8 million. At the same time, Goldman Sachs disclosed holdings of just over $1 billion in Ethereum exchange‑traded funds, joining BlackRock in treating the drawdown as an entry point.

BlackRock’s conviction rests on tokenisation. In January, the firm said Ethereum will lead the tokenisation of real‑world assets, noting that around 66% of all tokenised instruments sit on Ethereum, compared with about 10% on BNB Chain, 5% on Solana, 4% on Arbitrum, 4% on Stellar, and 3% on Avalanche. CEO Larry Fink has called tokenisation “necessary,” arguing in Davos that the goal is to bring “the entire financial system on one common blockchain.”

Market backdrop and key levels

The broader tape remains fragile. Bitcoin is down about 0.7% over the past 24 hours, trading near $66,582, while Ethereum has slipped roughly 0.4% to around $1,955. Spot dashboards show Bitcoin changing hands close to $66,618 with roughly $44.9 billion in 24‑hour volume, as Ethereum hovers near $1,961 on about $20.1 billion traded. Solana, another high‑beta proxy for crypto risk, trades around $192, with leading centralized exchanges printing quotes in the $191–$193 band on heavy liquidity.

This parabolic move comes as digital assets continue to trade as the purest expression of macro risk appetite. Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering around $66,600, with a 24‑hour range roughly between $65,000 and $68,400, on more than $30 billion in dollar volumes. Ethereum (ETH) changes hands close to $1,960, with about $20 billion in 24‑hour turnover and spot quotes clustering just below the $2,000 mark. Solana (SOL) trades near $192, fractionally lower on the day, with leading venues reporting individual pairs clearing hundreds of millions in volume.

For now, BlackRock is treating the selloff as structural opportunity rather than terminal decline, aligning its Bitmine bet with a broader thesis that Ethereum’s role in real‑world asset rails will outlast this drawdown.