ETH has been one of the worst-performing major assets of 2026. Monday looked different.

What Drove the Move

Three things converged to push Ethereum higher. Spot Ethereum ETFs pulled in more than $160 million last week — their strongest weekly inflows since mid-January. BlackRock rolled out a new staking ETF (ticker: ETHB) that lets investors earn yield on ETH holdings, drawing $45 million in its first two trading days on top of a $104 million seed investment. And BitMine kept buying.

BitMine (BMNR) purchased 60,999 ETH last week — its largest weekly haul of the year — bringing total holdings to 4.596 million tokens, or 3.81% of the entire Ethereum supply. Total crypto and cash holdings now stand at $11.5 billion.

The Tom Lee Thesis

BitMine chairman Tom Lee tied the buying directly to the Iran war: "Since the start of the Iran war, crypto prices have outperformed and Ethereum has outperformed the S&P 500 by 2,450 basis points." His argument: rising oil prices stoke fears of slowing economic growth, and when growth worries build, investors rotate into growth-oriented assets — including crypto.

BitMine also bought 5,000 ETH directly from the Ethereum Foundation in an over-the-counter deal, helping the Foundation fund its operations without selling on the open market. It's the second time the Foundation has sold ETH directly to a corporate treasury buyer.

Of BitMine's 4.6 million ETH, 3.04 million are currently staked, generating an estimated $180 million in annualized staking revenue. Once fully staked through its upcoming MAVAN validator network, that figure is expected to climb to $272 million.

Worth Noting

BMNR is still down 87% from its 52-week high of $161. And ETH itself is down roughly 23% from its January 1 price of $2,967 — Monday's bounce hasn't erased much of that.

The institutional momentum is real. Whether it holds depends on whether ETH is starting a recovery or just bouncing.