Market context
ETH is trading with a bid it hasn't carried in months. Price cleared $2,500 into the weekend and dominance has climbed back above 11%, per data cited in Cryptomat's entity digest for the past week. The move is not a broad altcoin rotation. It is concentrated in ETH, and it is happening while headlines are mixed: Notional Finance is being investigated for a suspected $1.7 million exploit routed through Tornado Cash, and stolen bitcoin from the Parked Coldcard incident has been laundered onto Ethereum. Two negatives that would normally cap a rally. The bid absorbed both.
The reason the tape is holding is corporate demand. BitMine Immersion Technologies said on Monday it bought 28,086 ETH for about $70.1 million, per Crypto.News and Decrypt. That lifted its treasury to 5.93 million ETH, worth roughly $14.8 billion at current marks per CryptoPotato, and puts the firm at 4.9% of total supply against a stated 5% target. Tom Lee, BitMine's chairman, told BeInCrypto he expects institutions to keep buying crypto after Q3's run. Whether you buy the thesis or not, the flow is real and it is one-directional.
Technical setup
The chart is doing exactly what a market absorbing a persistent bid tends to do: grinding, not exploding. U.Today's September 9 read flags cooling momentum near resistance, and that matches the price behavior since ETH tagged the $2,500 area. Volatility has compressed, funding on major perp venues sits close to neutral, and open interest is climbing without the sharp basis blowout you'd expect at a local top.