Will $2.3B options expiry shake Ethereum out of its price rut?
Ethereum is trading well below its 2021 record, and despite a noticeable rotation from major institutions into ETH-related products, the market remains stuck in a heavy, risk-sensitive range. With around $2.3 billion in Ethereum options set to expire, traders are asking whether this event can finally force price away from the current cluster of key strike levels or whether it will simply reinforce the status quo.
At the center of the story is a paradox: insiders are selling into strength, while Wall Street giants are quietly loading up on Ethereum exposure and ETH‑linked proxies. On top of that, the narrative around real‑world asset tokenization continues to solidify Ethereum’s long‑term role in global finance, even as the spot price grinds near a stubborn resistance zone just under $2,000.
BlackRock doubles down via a leveraged Ethereum proxy
BlackRock’s most aggressive expression of its Ethereum thesis isn’t in plain-vanilla spot ETH, but through a highly geared proxy: Bitmine, a digital asset treasury heavily exposed to Ether.
Regulatory filings compiled for the fourth quarter of 2025 show that BlackRock lifted its Bitmine stake by roughly 166%, taking the position to around $246 million. That move effectively cemented the firm as one of the key institutional backers of this Ethereum‑centric vehicle at a time when many high‑beta crypto names have been crushed.
Bitmine itself has had a brutal run. Its share price has collapsed by nearly 70% over the last six months, dropping to about $20. Yet BlackRock appears to view that drawdown as a feature, not a bug: a chance to gain levered ETH exposure at heavily discounted equity prices.
Bitmine’s chair, Tom Lee, has been vocal about his ultra‑bullish view on Ethereum’s long‑term trajectory, publicly touting a potential price target of $250,000 per coin. His reaction to BlackRock’s increased stake underscores the alignment between Bitmine’s speculative vision and BlackRock’s conviction that Ethereum’s role in the future financial system is still in its early innings.
Deep in the red, still adding ETH
Despite the pain in both ETH and Bitmine’s own stock, the company has continued to accumulate Ether. Bitmine recently added another $80 million worth of ETH to its balance sheet, even though its existing holdings are sitting on paper losses estimated at about $6.6 billion.
This kind of behavior is characteristic of a high‑conviction treasury strategy: average down through the drawdown and position for an eventual secular uptrend. As Tom Lee put it, the most attractive entry points in crypto have historically appeared after sharp price declines, not at euphoric highs.
BlackRock’s decision to lean into Bitmine at these levels signals that it shares, at least to some extent, that contrarian view. Rather than treating the current environment as a terminal breakdown for Ethereum, the firm appears to see it as a structural opportunity.
Ethereum’s price: heavy below $2,000, far from its peak
In spot markets, Ethereum has been trading just under the psychologically important $2,000 mark, roughly 60% below its August peak. The price action is lethargic but nervous: each push toward $2,000 has met resistance, while dips have so far attracted enough demand to prevent a decisive breakdown.
Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick has cautioned that ETH could still fall another 25% from current levels, potentially testing the $1,400 area. That zone aligns with a cluster of historical support and would represent a deeper washout of over‑leveraged traders and late longs.
On shorter timeframes, Ethereum’s 24‑hour volume has hovered near $20 billion, with spot quotes clustering in a tight band just below $2,000. The muted volatility into a major options expiry is precisely what sets the stage for potential sharp moves once open interest is flushed out or rolled forward.
Insiders trim ETH while Wall Street steps in
February brought a wave of notable insider selling. Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin offloaded at least $7 million in ETH, reportedly to fund new projects and initiatives. Around the same time, Aave founder Stani Kulechov sold more than $8 million worth of Ether.
These moves have been interpreted by some traders as a sign of cautious sentiment among early builders who are closely attuned to on‑chain dynamics and ecosystem risks. At the very least, they highlight that even core Ethereum figures are happy to de‑risk into rallies rather than chase upside.
In contrast, major financial institutions are using the same price range as an entry point. Goldman Sachs recently disclosed over $1 billion of exposure to Ethereum exchange‑traded funds, joining BlackRock in treating this phase of the cycle as a time to accumulate regulated ETH‑linked instruments rather than exit.
The divergence between insider behavior and institutional positioning underscores the complexity of the current market: builders are diversifying and raising capital, while Wall Street is finally moving beyond a purely Bitcoin‑centric view of digital assets.
Ethereum, AI, and “doing something fundamentally better”
In parallel to his portfolio moves, Vitalik Buterin has been emphasizing that Ethereum’s real opportunity in the AI boom is not to simply mirror what other platforms are already doing, but to build fundamentally more capable infrastructure.
His argument is that making Ethereum “the home for AI” is not about slapping blockchain rails onto existing AI applications. Instead, it’s about leveraging Ethereum’s programmable settlement layer, security guarantees, and global liquidity to create products that are technologically meaningfully better than their centralized or single‑platform counterparts.
This thinking dovetails with Ethereum’s broader positioning: it aims to be a generalized base layer where capital, identity, data, and computation intersect. As tokenization, AI, and decentralized finance interlock, ETH’s value proposition hinges more on being the core infrastructure than on any particular short‑term price level.
Tokenization: the backbone of BlackRock’s ETH thesis
The key pillar of BlackRock’s Ethereum strategy is not meme‑driven speculation, but tokenization of real‑world assets. In January, the firm reiterated that Ethereum is currently the dominant chain for tokenized instruments, with roughly 66% of tokenized assets residing on its network.
By comparison, BNB Chain hosts about 10% of tokenized instruments, while Solana manages 5%, Arbitrum 4%, Stellar 4%, and Avalanche 3%. These numbers highlight Ethereum’s entrenched network effects: developers, tooling, liquidity, and institutional familiarity have all converged on ETH as the default infrastructure.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has described tokenization as “necessary,” arguing that the long‑term ambition is to migrate large segments of the global financial system onto a shared blockchain rail. In that vision, Ethereum sits at the center as the primary settlement and coordination layer for tokenized securities, money market products, real estate, and more.
Even if short‑term price action remains choppy and macro‑sensitive, this structural thesis explains why large asset managers are willing to keep adding exposure into weakness.
A fragile macro backdrop and correlated crypto tape
The broader crypto market is still trading like a high‑beta expression of global risk appetite. Bitcoin has slipped modestly, down around 0.7% over the last 24 hours and oscillating near $66,600, with an intraday range of roughly $65,000 to $68,400 on sizable turnover north of $30 billion.
Ethereum is marginally weaker, off around 0.4% and fluctuating between the mid‑$1,900s and just below $2,000. Solana, another proxy for speculative risk in the crypto complex, changes hands near $192, with major exchanges quoting between $191 and $193 on heavy liquidity and substantial individual pair volumes.
This correlation to macro risk means that any shock from equities, bonds, or central bank policy can quickly spill over into crypto. For Ethereum, that backdrop creates a push‑pull between structural adoption narratives and the short‑term realities of higher rates, reduced liquidity, and fragile sentiment.
How the $2.3B options expiry could move ETH
The looming $2.3 billion Ethereum options expiry is a key near‑term catalyst that could disrupt the current stalemate around $2,000. Options open interest has accumulated around several critical strike levels, with a notable concentration near round numbers such as $1,800, $2,000, and above.
In options markets, the so‑called “max pain” level—the price at which the largest number of options buyers would lose value—often acts as a magnet into expiry. Market makers who are short options tend to hedge dynamically, selling or buying spot ETH as price drifts away from that zone to keep their overall exposure neutral.
If the bulk of open interest is centered around the $2,000 region, there are two main scenarios:
1. Pinning scenario:
Price remains compressed near the dominant strike as expiry approaches. Market makers hedge in a way that keeps ETH trapped close to max pain, suppressing volatility. After expiry, that pinning pressure vanishes, potentially allowing a more directional move.
2. Gamma squeeze / break scenario:
If ETH breaks decisively away from the key strike—say, surging above $2,050 or sliding below $1,850—hedging flows can flip, forcing market makers to buy into strength or sell into weakness. That can magnify the move and trigger liquidations across futures and perpetuals.
Given the size of the expiry, even modest order‑flow imbalances could translate into sharp intraday swings as hedges are adjusted and positions are rolled into later maturities.
Key technical levels to watch around expiry
Traders focused on the options event are closely monitoring a few critical zones:
– Resistance: $2,000–$2,050
This band has repeatedly capped rallies. A clean break and daily close above it would signal that demand is strong enough to absorb options‑related selling and open the door to a move toward $2,200–$2,300.
– Support: $1,800–$1,850
A cluster of previous lows and a popular strike zone for puts. A sustained break below could quickly invite a retest of deeper supports, including the $1,600 region and, in a more bearish scenario, the $1,400 area flagged by Standard Chartered.
– Volatility pocket between $1,850 and $2,000
Within this range, options gamma dynamics are likely to be most intense, with rapid mean‑reversion possible as hedgers push price back toward concentrated strikes.
From a risk‑management perspective, leveraged traders face elevated whipsaw risk around the expiry. Spot‑only investors and long‑term holders may view any exaggerated move—up or down—as noise within a broader accumulation phase.
Will the expiry break the range—or reinforce it?
Whether the $2.3 billion expiry “jolts” Ethereum out of its current groove depends on how aggressively positions are re‑established afterward. If large players simply roll their options into future maturities with similar strike distributions, the magnetic pull of the same levels could reassert itself, keeping ETH tethered around the $2,000 area.
On the other hand, if the expiry is accompanied by a meaningful shift in positioning—such as a reduction in open interest, a migration to higher or lower strikes, or a surge in directional call or put buying—it could reset the market’s center of gravity. In that case, the days following expiry often matter more than the expiry day itself.
For institutional allocators with a multi‑year horizon, this is largely a tactical sideshow. For traders and structured‑product desks, however, the expiry is a defining event that can dictate risk budgets, hedging strategies, and short‑term P&L.
Structural thesis vs. cyclical headwinds
Zooming out, Ethereum sits at the intersection of two opposing forces:
– Structural tailwinds:
– Dominance in real‑world asset tokenization
– Deep developer ecosystem and DeFi infrastructure
– Growing institutional comfort with ETH as a core allocation
– Expanding narratives around AI, programmable money, and on‑chain capital markets
– Cyclical headwinds:
– Higher‑for‑longer interest rates and tighter dollar liquidity
– Insider selling and cautious retail sentiment
– Competition from faster or cheaper L1 and L2 alternatives
– Heavy options open interest concentrating price near key strikes
BlackRock’s posture, reinforced by its Bitmine bet, indicates that large asset managers increasingly see the former as outweighing the latter over the medium to long term. They are willing to accept volatility around options expiries, macro shocks, and insider rotations in exchange for a front‑row seat to the tokenization of global finance.
Bottom line
The $2.3 billion Ethereum options expiry is less about predicting a single “big move” and more about understanding how derivatives positioning can temporarily shape spot price behavior. ETH’s failure to reclaim its 2021 high so far masks the quiet but determined build‑up of institutional exposure and its entrenched role in tokenized assets.
Whether the expiry snaps Ethereum out of its range or simply reinforces the gravitational pull around $2,000, the deeper story remains the same: Wall Street is increasingly positioning for a world where Ethereum is part of the core financial plumbing, while insiders and early adopters tactically adjust their holdings as that vision slowly comes into focus.