Corporate Ethereum treasury firms are facing significant paper losses on their holdings after the recent market correction dragged many under.
BitMine Immersion Technologies, the most important corporate holder of Ether (ETH), is sitting on $6.95 billion in unrealized losses. His Ether holdings were acquired at a mean price of $3,883 per token, well above the present ETH price of $2,240.
SharpLink Gaming, the second-largest Ether treasury company, faces $1.09 billion in paper losses after the worth of Ether fell below its average cost base of $3,609, in line with the corporate's dashboard.
The mounting unrealized losses could test the religion of Ether treasury firms and make it increasingly difficult to lift funds as Ether's correction causes its market net asset value (MNAV) to say no. BitMine's mNAV fell to 1, while SharpLink's mNAV fell to 0.92.
The mNAV ratio compares an organization's enterprise value to the worth of its crypto holdings. An mNAV below 1 makes it harder for firms to lift funds by issuing latest shares, which can limit their cryptocurrency purchases.
ETH price, BMNR purchases. Source: Bitminetracker.io
The dynamic could lead on to a “brutal truncation” amongst crypto treasury firms in 2026, when only the best-capitalized players survive, asset manager Pantera Capital predicted.
Despite the concerns, Ether's current decline stays consistent with the evaluation of Tom Lee, chairman of BitMine and co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors.
Lee predicted Ether would fall to around $1,800 in the primary quarter of 2026 before crypto markets gain traction and get better by 12 months's end, Cointelegraph reported in December.
On December 21, screenshots of an internal research note from Lee surfaced predicting future fluctuations. Source: AlejandroBTC
Trend Research sells $79 million price of Ether at a loss
The recent crypto market downturn has already put pressure on some financial firms to start out unwinding their bets.
On Monday, Hong Kong-based investment firm Trend Research closed its leveraged positions by selling 33,589 Ether price $79 million at a loss.
Trend Research has borrowed a further $77.5 million (USDT) from Binance to repay its loan. According to blockchain data shared by EmberCN, the corporate lowered the quantity of its ETH loan liquidation from $1,880 to $1,830.
Data shows that Trend Research is borrowing Tether from Binance. Source: EmberCN
Trend Research still holds an extended position price 618,000 Ether (price $1.43 billion on the time of writing), but faces an unrealized lack of over $534 million.
Jack Yi, founding father of Trend Research, said the investment firm will wait for the market to get better while keeping risk under control.
“After selling off at the highest, being too early for an uptrend in ETH was indeed a mistake. Because when BTC was around 100,000, ETH stayed at 3000 and we thought it was undervalued,” he added in a post on Monday.
ETH/USD, one-day chart, token god mode. Source: Nansen
Meanwhile, the industry’s leading traders, dubbed “smart money,” are accumulating spot Ether tokens throughout the market downturn.
According to crypto intelligence platform Nansen, smart money traders acquired $38.3 million price of spot ETH tokens last week, while whales acquired $5.47 million and latest wallets acquired $31 million.
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