The Ethereum Foundation pulled 21,271 ETH worth approximately $49.66 million from its Lido staking positions on May 11, the latest in a sequence of treasury moves that have unwound nearly a third of the staking position it spent four months assembling. On-chain data from Arkham Intelligence shows the withdrawal processed in uniform batches of wrapped staked ETH, each valued at around $2.3 million, routed through Lido's unstETH contract. None of the assets have been flagged as moving toward an exchange deposit address—they remain in Lido's withdrawal queue pending finalization—and Arkham attributed the activity to treasury rebalancing rather than preparation for an open-market sale.
The move brought the Foundation's staked ETH balance from near its self-imposed 70,000 ETH ceiling down to approximately 52,965 ETH, with no formal statement accompanying the transaction.
Foundation Runs Multiple Liquidity Strategies Simultaneously
In April, the Foundation announced plans to convert 5,000 ETH into stablecoins via a time-weighted average price execution through CoWSwap—spreading the sale over time to limit market impact and secure predictable operational funding independent of short-term price conditions, pointing to a treasury now running multiple liquidity strategies concurrently.
Bitmine Goes Long While Foundation Pulls Back
On the same day the Foundation processed its latest withdrawal, Bitmine Immersion Technologies—now the largest corporate ETH holder globally—moved in the opposite direction, adding 26,659 ETH worth approximately $62.1 million, lifting its total position to 5.2 million ETH with more than 90% staked through its MAVAN validator network. The Foundation is drawing down its staked position, Bitmine is scaling one at a pace no other corporate treasury is matching. That divergence gives the Foundation's drawdown its sharpest edge. Its partnership with Bitwise Onchain Solutions was announced in March as a model for institutional staking—a demonstration that a major non-profit could secure the Ethereum network directly while funding itself through yield. The Foundation completed its 70,000 ETH target in early April. By mid-May, nearly a third of it had come back out, with no official explanation accompanying the reversal.