- Bitmine added 71,672Â ETH, worth over $155 million, over the past week, as CEO Tom Lee called the current dip an “attractive opportunity.”
- ETH faces heavy selling pressure, dropping to a monthly low of $2,110 as yet another Ethereum bridge got attacked for $11.5 million.
Ethereum continues to face intense selling pressure, dropping to a five-week low below $2,110 as another bridge got hacked for $11.5 million and $18 billion exited DeFi protocols. However, ETH’s biggest bull, Tom Lee, is backing the coin to recover, purchasing another 71,000 tokens in the past week.
In an announcement on Monday, Bitmine Immersion Technologies revealed that it had increased its Ethereum holdings to 5,278,462Â ETH, accumulating 71,672 coins over the past week. The company has acquired its tokens at an average of $2,191. It has staked 4.7 million tokens, the highest of any entity. It projects to generate $324 million annually from the staking once all its systems are running.
Bitmine remains unfazed by Ethereum’s recent price dip. Chairman Lee said that the recent dip below $2,200 is “an attractive opportunity.”
The ETH Treasury company says that the CLARITY Act, which recently cleared the Senate Banking Committee, will hand the sector a major boost. Lee commented:
“The CLARITY Act provides the necessary regulatory clarity for the crypto industry and Wall Street to build the next generation of financial products and architecture. There are still many steps and hurdles to overcome before the CLARITY Act becomes law. But we believe the probability of passage is higher than the 61% reflected on Polymarket.com.”
As we reported, the CLARITY Act is heading to a vote on the Senate floor, and despite partisan division, experts expect it to sail through. President Trump has directed his administration to have the bill on his desk by Independence Day on July 4.
Verus Hack and DeFi Drain Drag Ethereum (ETH) Down
Ethereum trades just above $2,130 at press time, opening the week with a 3% drop. Earlier today, it hit a five-week low at $2,109, the lowest it has traded since the first week of April. This brings its weekly losses to 8%.
Lee blames the price drop on macro factors, pointing to the rising oil prices as the main driver of the bearish forces. He believes that the current drop is “short-term tactical noise” and that stronger tailwinds like tokenization and agentic AI will spur the leading altcoin’s recovery.
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If one is wondering why Ethereum $ETH has been under selling pressure:– to me, rising oil prices is the biggest headwind
– ETH inverse correlation to oil is the highest ever pic.twitter.com/G5Uw0wbtJP— Thomas (Tom) Lee (not drummer) FundstratDirect.com (@fundstrat) May 18, 2026
However, other analysts have pointed to other factors within the Ethereum ecosystem. One of these is a rise in attacks that have drained nearly $1 billion in the first four months. The highlight was KelpDAO, which lost $300 million in a bridge attack.
The most recent is Verus, whose Ethereum bridge enabling users to move assets between the two networks, was hacked for $11.5 million. The hacker made off with 103.6 tokenized BTC, 1,625 ETH and 147,000 USDC.
These hacks have reduced investor confidence in DeFi. As we reported, in the past month, 31 of the top 50 DeFi protocols (and 9 of the top 10) recorded outflows. Collectively, DeFi lost $18 billion in the past five weeks, and with Ethereum dominating the sector, it was one of the most affected networks.
