{"id":22027,"date":"2026-02-13T12:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/will-2-3b-options-expiry-jolt-ethereum-price-from-key-strike-levels\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:57:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:57:29","slug":"will-2-3b-options-expiry-jolt-ethereum-price-from-key-strike-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/will-2-3b-options-expiry-jolt-ethereum-price-from-key-strike-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"Will $2.3B options expiry jolt Ethereum price from key strike levels?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">Ethereum price continues to lag its 2021 peak as institutions rotate cautiously into ETH exposure while weighing ETF flows, on-chain activity, and broader macro risk.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_acb368f93266245c8aac58d88eb485c0\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>BlackRock lifts its Bitmine stake 166% to $246M, doubling down on a\u00a0levered\u00a0Ethereum price proxy even as ETH trades ~60% below its peak and Bitmine stock is down ~70%.\u200b<\/li>\n<li>Vitalik Buterin and Stani Kulechov recently sold millions in ETH while BlackRock and Goldman Sachs add exposure via Bitmine and Ethereum ETFs, treating the drawdown as opportunity.\u200b<\/li>\n<li>BlackRock\u2019s thesis leans on Ethereum\u2019s dominance in tokenized real\u2011world assets, with Larry Fink calling tokenization \u201cnecessary\u201d as BTC, ETH and SOL trade as high\u2011beta macro risk proxies.\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>BlackRock is leaning into the pain on Ethereum (ETH) price, quietly ramping up its exposure to Bitmine even as blue\u2011chip crypto names slide and prominent insiders head for the exits.\u200b<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"blackrocks-leveraged-ethereum-bet\">BlackRock\u2019s leveraged Ethereum bet<\/h2>\n<p>According to a 13F\u2011HR filing collated by Fintel, BlackRock\u2019s Bitmine stake jumped 166% in Q4 2025 to about $246 million, cementing the asset manager as a key backer of the Ethereum\u2011heavy treasury vehicle. Bitmine, the second\u2011largest digital asset treasury firm and a levered proxy on Ether, has seen its own stock price crater nearly 70% over six months to roughly $20 per share. The move drew an approving response from Bitmine chair Tom Lee, who has publicly floated a $250,000 price target for Ethereum and responded with clapping emojis to the disclosure in a post on X.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<p>BlackRock\u2019s buying spree lands as Ethereum trades just under $2,000, roughly 60% below its August peak, with Standard Chartered\u2019s Geoffrey Kendrick warning the token could drop a further 25% toward $1,400. \u201cThe best investment opportunities in crypto have presented themselves after declines,\u201d Lee said on Monday, after Bitmine added another $80 million of Ether to its already underwater position, which is sitting on at least $6.6 billion in paper losses.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"insiders-sell-wall-street-buys\">Insiders sell, Wall Street buys<\/h2>\n<p>February has seen crypto pioneers unload sizable Ether positions, even as Wall Street leans in. Ethereum co\u2011founder Vitalik Buterin sold at least $7 million worth of ETH last week to fund new initiatives, while Aave founder Stani Kulechov offloaded more than $8 million. At the same time, Goldman Sachs disclosed holdings of just over $1 billion in Ethereum exchange\u2011traded funds, joining BlackRock in treating the drawdown as an entry point.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is the right way to &#8220;make Ethereum be the home for AI&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t just do what everyone else would do anyway, just on rails with an octahedron logo instead of a square or circle or pentagon logo. Make something fundamentally better, using meaningful technological improvements\u2026 <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sQhMVSccHt\">https:\/\/t.co\/sQhMVSccHt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VitalikButerin\/status\/2021594878162157948?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">February 11, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>BlackRock\u2019s conviction rests on tokenisation. In January, the firm said Ethereum will lead the tokenisation of real\u2011world assets, noting that around 66% of all tokenised instruments sit on Ethereum, compared with about 10% on BNB Chain, 5% on Solana, 4% on Arbitrum, 4% on Stellar, and 3% on Avalanche. CEO Larry Fink has called tokenisation \u201cnecessary,\u201d arguing in Davos that the goal is to bring \u201cthe entire financial system on one common blockchain.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"market-backdrop-and-key-levels\">Market backdrop and key levels<\/h2>\n<p>The broader tape remains fragile. Bitcoin is down about 0.7% over the past 24 hours, trading near $66,582, while Ethereum has slipped roughly 0.4% to around $1,955. Spot dashboards show Bitcoin changing hands close to $66,618 with roughly $44.9 billion in 24\u2011hour volume, as Ethereum hovers near $1,961 on about $20.1 billion traded. Solana, another high\u2011beta proxy for crypto risk, trades around $192, with leading centralized exchanges printing quotes in the $191\u2013$193 band on heavy liquidity.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p>This parabolic move comes as digital assets continue to trade as the purest expression of macro risk appetite. Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering around $66,600, with a 24\u2011hour range roughly between $65,000 and $68,400, on more than $30 billion in dollar volumes. Ethereum (ETH) changes hands close to $1,960, with about $20 billion in 24\u2011hour turnover and spot quotes clustering just below the $2,000 mark. Solana (SOL) trades near $192, fractionally lower on the day, with leading venues reporting individual pairs clearing hundreds of millions in volume.<\/p>\n<p>For now, BlackRock is treating the selloff as structural opportunity rather than terminal decline, aligning its Bitmine bet with a broader thesis that Ethereum\u2019s role in real\u2011world asset rails will outlast this drawdown.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethereum price continues to lag its 2021 peak as institutions rotate cautiously into ETH exposure while weighing ETF flows, on-chain activity, and broader macro risk. Summary BlackRock lifts its Bitmine&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22028,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027\/revisions\/22028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}