Bit Digital ETH buy loses $3M as price drops below $2,000

Bit Digital bought 8,568 ETH for roughly $20 million on May 11 at an average price of $2,334 per token, the Ethereum-treasury firm's first ether purchase since the October market peak. ETH has since broken below $2,000, putting the acquisition about $3 million underwater — a roughly 15% drawdown in under two weeks.

The purchase lifted Bit Digital's treasury to about 158,462 ETH, worth roughly $313 million at current prices, with part staked directly and another portion deployed through liquid staking products. CEO Sam Tabar framed the timing as reflecting a view that "market conditions had reset to a level consistent with our thesis," pointing to stablecoin settlement, tokenized assets and AI-related transactions as long-term demand drivers for the network.

Why it matters

The buy stands out against a broader pullback across digital asset treasury companies, which have spent recent months scaling back crypto accumulation, conserving cash, or selling assets to service debt as the gap between their share prices and underlying holdings widened. Bit Digital's willingness to lean back in — and to publish a thesis justifying the entry — is a counter-signal to that cohort, though the immediate mark-to-market says the timing was early. The New York-based firm also pivoted from a bitcoin-heavy treasury toward an Ethereum focus and holds a controlling stake in AI-infrastructure operator WhiteFiber, tying its corporate story to two of the market's most watched narratives.

Market impact

ETH trading near $1,980 leaves every treasury that accumulated into the late-2024 / early-2025 range sitting on unrealized losses, and Bit Digital's published entry point gives the market a clean reference for what an ETH-focused treasury firm was willing to pay at the recent lows. With most peers in retreat, the next datapoint to watch is whether other Ethereum-treasury names follow Bit Digital's lead or hold cash until the leverage unwind Tabar points to fully clears.