New York-based company Culper Research announced that it has taken short positions in Ethereum ($ETH) and BitMine, and stated that it expects further declines in the $ETH price.
US-based aggressive short investor Culper Research announced it has taken short positions in Ethereum and related securities, particularly in BitMine, the largest Ethereum mining company.
Culper Research argues that Ethereum’s token economics model will be compromised after the network’s Fusaka upgrade in December 2025.
According to Culper Research, this upgrade significantly reduced transaction fees. Since validators derive a portion of their revenue from these fees, this reduction decreased staking yields.
At this point, the company states that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin became aware of the problem and sold his holdings.
The company, which also criticized Ethereum bull Tom Lee, states that Lee’s bullish arguments are misleading and predicts that $ETH prices will fall further.
At this point, the company is challenging Lee’s optimistic claims that increasing transaction numbers and active addresses are evidence of stronger network foundations.
Culper notes that these metrics are misleading. According to his analysis, a significant portion of the increase in activity stems from address poisoning attacks, a phishing tactic where attackers send small transactions to trick users into copying malicious wallet addresses. Culper estimates that Ethereum transaction fees have dropped by approximately 90% since the upgrade.
“Vitalik is selling, while bull market advocates like Tom Lee are unaware of $ETH’s new reality. We stand with Vitalik.”
*This is not investment advice.