The Ethereum Foundation sold another 10,000 ETH valued at roughly $23 million to Tom Lee's Bitmine Immersion Technologies on Friday, the organization said.

Bitmine's latest purchase comes exactly one week after the Ethereum Foundation sold another tranche of 10,000 ETH, at the time worth about $24 million. Once again, the foundation said the funds will be put towards “core operations & activities, including protocol R&D, ecosystem development, community grant funding and more.”

In this latest transaction, Bitmine paid an average price of $2,292.15 per ETH.

With approximately $47 million worth of ETH sold to Bitmine in a week, the world's largest Ethereum-based digital asset treasury also began staking another 162,088 ether as of Thursday, according to blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain. That brought Bitmine's staked ETH total to 4,194,029 ether, worth about $9.5 billion, representing 83% of its cumulative holdings, Lookonchain said.

Ethereum's price rose over 2% on Friday to $2,309.80 as of 2:26 p.m. ET, according to The Block Price Page. Bitmine purchased the ETH from the Ethereum Foundation in over-the-counter transactions.

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Bitmine has been steadily increasing the amount of ETH it is staking to earn yield. Last week, the company's staking exposure sat closer to 70% of its total holdings.

The Ethereum Foundation's selling of ETH has drawn scrutiny in the past. At one point last year, the organization said it planned to limit ETH sales. To that end, the foundation has also begun staking a portion of its ETH holdings and deploying assets into DeFi, creating revenue for the organization. Still, the Ethereum Foundation has made multiple sales to Ethereum treasury firms Bitmine and SharpLink. Bitmine bought 5,000 ETH off the foundation in March.

Friday's announcement, posted to X, was met with plenty of criticism. "Why do you need $46 million in 2 weeks?! How much are you guys burning and what for?," asked Danijel.