Tom Lee's Bitmine Nears 5% of Ether Supply With $41M ETH Buy

Bitmine Nears 5% $ETH Supply Target

Bitmine said Monday that it obtained an additional 15,112 $ETH over the last week. That pushed the firm’s total holdings to over 6.016 million $ETH, worth about $16.27 billion at the current ether price near $2,710. The firm now holds over 4.9% of the $ETH supply, nearing its long-stated 5% target.

“We believe that as crypto enters a cycle we view as a bull market, what is notable is Bitmine’s share price outperformance of $ETH during the bear market of 2025-2026. In the first 9 months of 2026, $ETH declined 10% while BMNR was down by 3%, or outperformance of 731bp,” said Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee, in a statement.

Lee said the firm has repurchased over 21 million BMNR shares so far in 2026 in an effort to drive shareholder value. At BMNR’s recent price of $26.60, the buyback is valued at more than $558 million so far this year. The chairman also pointed to ways in which the price of $ETH is beating the broader market of late.

“The outperformance of $ETH by 6,832bp relative to the S&P 500 in 3Q26 is notable considering the substantial macro headwinds that emerged in the quarter including a ‘hawkish’ Fed, surging oil, rise in global bond yields and general tightening of financial conditions,” he said. “Quarter to date, $ETH is outperforming by 6,832bp, dwarfing other macro assets.”

The price of $ETH is down about 9% since the start of the year, but has jumped more than 51% in the last three months amid a broader crypto market rebound.

Bitmine isn’t the only prominent crypto treasury firm to announce a purchase on Monday. Strategy, the bitcoin treasury giant that popularized the crypto accumulation model, now holds over $72.5 billion worth of bitcoin after adding about $28.7 million worth last week.

Meanwhile, Strive added 2,000 bitcoin (about $169 million worth) last week, bringing its stash to 29,462 BTC—valued above $2.5 billion.