Bitmine buys 101,901 ETH, vault tops 5 million as Tom Lee hails ether a “wartime store of value”
Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) has pushed its ether (ETH) treasury past 5 million tokens after purchasing 101,901 ETH through last week, the company said Monday. The latest buy brings Bitmine’s ETH balance to 5,078,386 — roughly 4.21% of ether’s circulating supply — as the firm pursues an ambition to control about 5% of ETH.
The purchase, worth about $236 million at current prices, is the latest in a run of increasingly large weekly additions to Bitmine’s digital-asset coffers since the company pivoted from bitcoin mining to a crypto treasury strategy in June. The milestone comes roughly 10 months after that strategic shift.
“We crossed 5 million this past week,” Chairman Thomas “Tom” Lee said, calling it “a major milestone as the company moves towards acquiring 5% of the ETH supply.”
Balance sheet and yield strategy
Bitmine’s total crypto and cash holdings are about $13.3 billion. Alongside its 5.08 million ETH position, the company holds 200 bitcoin, roughly $940 million in cash, and equity stakes that include investments in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings (focused on Worldcoin). BMNR shares were unchanged in pre-market trading following the update.
To monetize its ETH, Bitmine has expanded staking operations. About 3.7 million tokens — roughly 73% of its ETH holdings — are currently staked, generating an estimated $264 million in annualized revenue. The firm launched the Mavan staking platform in March, both to support its own treasury and to attract institutional staking customers.
Lee: ETH moving beyond speculation
Lee framed the accumulation as more than a tactical bet. Citing research from Etherealize, he said ETH is increasingly being treated as a “store of value” and as collateral, as more financial transactions and tokenization use cases migrate to public blockchains. Lee also noted that ETH has outperformed the S&P 500 since the start of the Iran conflict, calling the cryptocurrency “the best ‘war-time store of value’” and pointing to long-term tailwinds such as tokenization and AI systems that rely on public blockchain infrastructure.
What this means
Bitmine’s aggressive ETH buys and high staking ratio underline a broader move by some corporates to hold liquid, income-generating crypto treasuries even while many other corporate treasuries remain on the sidelines. Whether Bitmine hits its 5% target will be watched closely by markets given the size of the holding and its potential influence on ETH liquidity and staking dynamics.
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