Bitmine, the world’s largest Ethereum vault, has increased its ETH purchases during the recent cryptocurrency market correction, marking the company’s largest purchase so far in 2026.

Bitmine doubles the value of Ethereum

On Monday, Bitmine Immersion Technologies announced during last week’s drop, it bought over 126,971 ETH worth about $214 million, marking the largest treasury purchase this year.

Bitmine’s current crypto and cash holdings total $9.6 billion at current prices and include 5,543,872 ETH at $1,630 per ETH, 204 Bitcoin (BTC), $180 million in shares of Beast Industries, $88 million of shares in Eightco Holdings under its “Moonshots” initiative, and a total cash holding of $247 million.

In a statement, Bitmine CEO Tom Lee explained that the company viewed the recent price decline, which saw Ethereum hit a year-long low of $1,505 on Sunday, as a buying opportunity, arguing that Ethereum’s fundamentals were strengthening.

“We have increased our purchases because we believe that the decline in ETH prices does not reflect the strengthening of Ethereum’s fundamentals. This is not surprising considering that we are in the early stages of crypto spring,” he said.

Lee argued that the broader sell-off in the cryptocurrency market was a “superficial approach,” resulting more from short-term panic than real weakness. He also confirmed that the recent Zcash Orchard incident strengthens the Ethereum apply case.

AI systems will find flaws in centralized financial services buses and feeble decentralized protocols. We believe this actually strengthens the apply case and product market fit for strengthened and reliable decentralized blockchains like Ethereum.

Therefore, the treasury firm believes that “ETH prices should not be under pressure,” he added. After the latest purchase, the company’s ETH holdings reached 4.59% of the altcoin’s total supply. Lee expects the company to hit its 5% shipment goal “sometime in 2026.”

ETH Eyes key technical level

Despite Bitmine’s continued betting on Ethereum, the altcoin king has struggled over the past week, recovering around 15% and losing February lows for the first time in four months.

Ash Crypto market observer excellent that ETH is repeating a configuration that was already observed once during the last bear market. “In June 2022, ETH broke through every support level and fell to $880. Everyone gave up. It turned out that this was the exact bottom of the entire bear market,” he wrote.

This time, Ethereum has retreated 68% from its 2025 high and has broken through every support level after losing its 200-week moving average (MA), which is around $2,471. Now the next key support worth paying attention to is the price of $1,500, which may determine whether ETH repeats its previous scenario.

If ETH sustains the $1,500 level, market observers believe the setup could follow exactly as it did in 2022, leading to a five-fold escalate over the next 18 months. On the contrary, if Ethereum loses $1,500 in a week, he suggested that the price could drop all the way to the $1,000 area, where the next major support zone is.

At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $1,687, up 4.8% on the daily time frame.

Featured image from Unsplash.com, chart from TradingView.com