Tom Lee’s BitMine Doubles Down on Its Ethereum Bet

BitMine Immersion Technologies bought 9,946 more ETH last week and spent the same seven days buying back 6.1 million of its own shares, running both trades at once. Shares of the Ethereum treasury company, ticker BMNR, jumped more than 5% in premarket trading Monday and traded near $16, according to TradingView data.

Chairman Tom Lee is betting on Ether and BMNR stock at the same time, on the theory that both are underpriced. The arithmetic behind that bet got sharper this week: Bitmine now says it sits at 96% of its long-standing goal of owning one twentieth of all ETH, Ethereum’s native token, in existence.

The Double Squeeze Behind BitMine’s Latest Buy

Bitmine has bought ETH every week since launching its Ethereum treasury strategy on June 30, 2025. Last week’s purchase of 9,946 tokens pushed total holdings to 5,787,414 ETH, worth about $11.8 billion including cash and other crypto assets, the company disclosed. That stake equals 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply.

Bitmine kept buying back its own stock at the same time. The company repurchased 6.1 million BMNR shares last week, up from 5.5 million the week before. Those two weeks alone add up to the entire 11.6 million shares Bitmine has bought back so far under its board-approved $4 billion repurchase program.

Buying more of an asset while shrinking the share count that owns it is financial leverage in its purest form. Each remaining BMNR share now represents a bigger claim on Bitmine’s ETH stack than it did seven days earlier, before either transaction happened.

Why Tom Lee Is Leaning Harder Into the Buyback

Lee pointed to a shift in how Ether trades against Bitcoin as the reason for pressing harder on the buyback this week.

In fact, this ratio is now at a 3-month high at 0.3000, which we believe bodes well for future strengthening of ETH prices.

Tom Lee, Bitmine’s chairman, wrote in the company’s weekly shareholder update. The ETH/BTC ratio tracks Ether’s price against Bitcoin’s, and traders use it as a rough gauge of whether capital is rotating out of Bitcoin and into Ether and other altcoins. A three month high, in Lee’s reading, is a signal that rotation is underway.

A 1987 Chart Pattern Is Doing a Lot of Work

Ether has also climbed back above the psychological $1,900 mark this week, part of a broader rebound across crypto markets. Lee said ETH prices are now at a 10 week high.

“Our advisor, Tom DeMark of DeMark Analytics, sees these levels as near-term targets if the comparison of ETH to S&P 500 post-Oct 1987 continues to hold,” Lee said, pointing to $2,000 and $2,500 as the next levels for Ether to clear. DeMark, Bitmine’s outside technical advisor, has been mapping Ethereum’s recent price path against the S&P 500’s climb out of the October 1987 crash for several weeks now.

Lee has gone further in separate public comments reported by Blockonomi, floating a longer run “ETH 2.0” thesis that he argues could eventually carry Ether into six figure territory. That outlook is far more aggressive than the firm’s own near-term $2,000 to $2,500 markers, and it rests on Lee’s own framing rather than a price the market has confirmed.

Ninety-Six Percent of the Way to ‘Alchemy’

Bitmine calls its accumulation target the “alchemy of five percent,” a philosophy that commits the company to ETH as its primary treasury reserve asset while drawing on staking and decentralized finance mechanisms for yield. The company says it is now 96% of the way to owning one twentieth of all ETH in circulation, a goal it still expects to reach sometime in 2026.

According to CoinGecko’s tracker of corporate Ethereum treasuries, Bitmine is already the largest public corporate holder of ETH by a wide margin. The staking side of that treasury has grown just as fast:

• 4,917,189 ETH is staked through Bitmine’s Made-in America VAlidator Network (MAVAN), the company’s in-house staking platform, and partner validators, worth roughly $9.6 billion.
• Staked ETH now makes up 85% of Bitmine’s total Ethereum holdings.
• Just a week earlier, on July 20, Bitmine reported 5.78 million tokens and $9.2 billion in staked ETH, showing how quickly both numbers are moving.
• Total treasury value, including cash and other crypto assets, reached $11.8 billion in the latest count.

Bitmine has said the fully staked treasury could generate meaningfully more in annual protocol rewards than it does today, income the company can point to as it defends both its ETH buying and its stock buybacks to shareholders.

Why Hasn’t BMNR Stock Caught Up to Its Own Treasury?

Bitmine’s ETH stack has grown by more than a third since late December, when the company held just over 4 million ETH and BMNR shares traded near $25, according to a Seeking Alpha analysis published at the time that put the stock at a 20% discount to net asset value (NAV). Shares now trade around $16, even though the treasury behind them is bigger than it has ever been. The gap comes down to one thing: BMNR moves with Ether’s price, and Ether itself is still well off its own highs.

That correlation cuts both ways for shareholders. When ETH rallies, as it did Monday, BMNR tends to rally harder. When ETH slides, the stock has tended to slide harder too, which is part of why a bigger treasury has not automatically meant a higher share price.

Lee has framed Ether’s slide as a buying opportunity before. In March, he told shareholders Ethereum had already bottomed, months before this week’s rebound above $1,900. Whether that call was early or simply right is still an open question with ETH sitting well under the $2,000 level Lee is now targeting.

Who Else Is Racing for the Same Ether

Bitmine is not accumulating in a vacuum. SharpLink Gaming and Coinbase rank among the other major corporate holders of ETH, and corporate treasuries collectively controlled more than 6% of Ethereum’s entire supply as of a March count, according to Decrypt. Every token one of these companies buys and stakes is a token that leaves the freely traded float.

That shrinking float supports the bull case Lee is making in public. Less available supply chasing steady demand, in theory, helps price. It also means Bitmine’s next 9,946 ETH purchase gets marginally harder to source at a given price than the last one did, a dynamic playing out across the exact market Bitmine is trying to shrink into.

Bitmine’s next weekly disclosure is due in seven days, continuing a cadence the company has kept without a break since June 30, 2025.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Bitmine’s ‘Alchemy of Five Percent’ strategy?

It is the company’s name for its plan to own one twentieth of all ETH in circulation. Bitmine has said the strategy leans on native staking and decentralized finance mechanisms, not just spot purchases, to grow the treasury’s value, and it expects to hit the 5% mark sometime in 2026.

Why did a Bitcoin mining company become an Ethereum treasury?

Bitmine is still officially described in its own filings as a Bitcoin miner with US operations. It began redirecting excess capital into ETH purchases when it launched its Ethereum Treasury Strategy on June 30, 2025, and has bought ETH every week since.

How much revenue does Bitmine expect from staking its ETH?

The company has projected current annualized staking revenue of roughly $254 million from the portion of its ETH already staked. It has said that figure could rise to about $299 million a year once its entire ETH position is staked through MAVAN and partner validators.

What does a rising ETH/BTC ratio actually signal?

It measures Ether’s price relative to Bitcoin’s rather than in dollar terms. Traders watch the ratio for signs that capital is rotating out of Bitcoin into Ether and other altcoins, a shift often nicknamed alt season. Lee cited the ratio’s three month high as his reason for stepping up buybacks.

How much of Bitmine’s $4 billion buyback authorization has been used?

At BMNR’s current price near $16, the 11.6 million shares repurchased so far would cost roughly $185 million, under 5% of the total $4 billion the board authorized. That leaves the bulk of the program still unused.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Cryptocurrency and related equities are volatile and carry significant risk of loss. Figures cited are accurate as of publication and can change quickly. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.