Bitmine Immersion Technologies bought 27,180 ETH over the past week, lifting its treasury to 5.96 million ether, while a new industry report shows Ethereum losing ground where it once dominated: decentralized exchange volume. The two data points landed within hours of each other and capture the split mood around the asset right now. Corporate treasuries keep accumulating. Market share keeps eroding.
Tom Lee, the fund manager who chairs Bitmine, pointed to a potential year-end crypto rally as justification for the continued buying. The company has become one of the largest ether holders in the world, and its purchases have been a steady source of demand through a month when spot prices slid from above $3,100 to the $2,400 area.
The DEX share problem
The SwapSpace 2026 report, covered by COINOTAG, puts Ethereum’s share of DEX volume at 19.3%, down from 46.2%. Solana and BNB Chain absorbed most of that migration. The shift reflects a combination of lower fees on alternative chains, better retail tooling, and a wave of trading activity that never returned to Ethereum mainnet after the last cycle’s congestion.
The same report found crypto-backed borrowing up 74% year over year, a sign that on-chain credit demand is growing even as trading activity spreads across more chains. Ethereum still hosts the deepest lending markets, but the trading venue preference has clearly moved. A user who wants to swap tokens has dozens of cheap options, and most no longer route through Ethereum first.
What the treasuries are buying
Bitmine’s accumulation mirrors the strategy Strategy applied to bitcoin: issue equity or debt, buy the asset, and let the balance sheet do the marketing. Ether treasury companies now hold a meaningful slice of circulating supply, and their buying has cushioned drawdowns that would otherwise fall entirely on liquid market sellers.
The counterargument is dilution and reflexivity. If ether stalls, the premium these vehicles trade at compresses, and the buying that supported the price slows with it. Critics of the treasury model made the same point about bitcoin proxies in earlier cycles. So far the ether versions have kept buying through an 8% single-day drop this week, which is the test that matters.
There is also a governance angle. Holdings of this size concentrate staking power and voting weight across a handful of corporate balance sheets. Ethereum’s developer community has tolerated the concentration so far, but it is the kind of thing that draws regulatory attention when the underlying asset falls under an unresolved jurisdictional split, which is exactly where US law stands after Tuesday’s failed Senate vote.
ETF flows offer a second bid
Institutional demand has not dried up either. Coingabbar tallied $121 million of net inflows into spot ether ETFs on September 14, the third-largest single-day haul of the month, with BlackRock’s products accounting for $80.5 million of it. That followed $216 million the prior session. Ethereum funds have now posted back-to-back positive days while bitcoin funds ended a four-day outflow streak with $160 million.
The flows came ahead of a brutal news window: the Senate’s failed CLARITY Act cloture vote on Tuesday and the Fed’s rate decision Wednesday. Ether fell more than 8% in Tuesday’s session, its worst intraday drop since June, and the treasury buyers and ETF bid did little to stop it. XRP funds took in $11.26 million the same day, their third-largest September session, and Solana funds added $11.01 million.
Options positioning into expiry
Derivatives markets add another layer. crypto.news reported nearly $16.6 billion in bitcoin and ether options positioned for quarterly expiry, with calls exceeding puts as traders waited on the Fed. Elevated open interest into a volatile macro week tends to amplify whatever direction the catalyst provides, and this week’s catalysts broke negative. Liquidations topped $771 million in 24 hours after the Senate vote, with longs taking 85% of the losses.
Ether traded near $2,400 after the Senate vote, down from the $2,500 area earlier in the week. The Coinbase price page showed the asset roughly 42% below its all-time high of $4,953.73, with a fully diluted valuation near $304 billion and 24-hour volume of $12.7 billion.
The wider accumulation picture
On-chain data shared by Coinbase showed about $56 million of ether moving off exchanges in a day, and one investment firm on a 65-week buying streak, even as roughly 1.5 times more retail holders sold than bought. The pattern is consistent: larger, slower money accumulating; smaller, faster money exiting. Exchange balances falling while price falls is not a bullish signal by itself, but it does show the selling is coming from a different cohort than the buying.
Whether that pattern holds through a Fed hike and a dead regulatory bill is the near-term question. Bitmine’s purchases and BlackRock’s ETF inflows are price-insensitive bids in the sense that they follow mandates, not charts. The retail flow that sets short-term direction is not, and it has been selling.
The structural story for ether has not changed. It still settles the majority of stablecoin value, still hosts the largest lending markets, and still has the deepest institutional product suite. What has changed is competition for the trading layer, and no treasury purchase fixes that. Glamsterdam, the next major Ethereum upgrade targeting fee reduction and parallel processing, is the roadmap answer. Its timeline extends past the current downturn, which means the DEX share number will likely get worse before it gets better.