Bitmine buys $236 million in ether as Tom Lee touts ETH as 'wartime store of value'

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), the ether (ETH) treasury firm helmed by Chairman Thomas "Tom" Lee, bought 101,901 ETH through last week, pushing its total holdings above 5 million tokens of the second-largest cryptocurrency.

The purchase lifted the firm’s ETH treasury to 5,078,386 tokens, or about 4.21% of ether's circulating supply, according to a Monday update. Bitmine reached that milestone in roughly 10 months, since it pivoted to a digital asset treasury strategy company from a bitcoin miner in June.

"Bitmine ETH holdings crossed 5 million this past week," Lee said. "This is a major milestone as the company moves towards acquiring 5% of the ETH supply."

The latest purchase, worth roughly $236 million at current ETH prices, extends a streak of larger weekly purchases as Bitmine adds to its position while most digital asset treasuries remain on the sidelines.

The firm’s total crypto and cash holdings stand at $13.3 billion. Alongside its ETH position, the firm holds 200 bitcoin BTC$77,805.96, $940 million in cash and equity stakes including investments in Beast Industries and Worldcoin-focused Eightco Holdings.

The company has also expanded its staking operations to generate yield on its ETH stash. About 3.7 million tokens — roughly 73% of its holdings — are now staked, generating around $264 million in annualized revenue. The firm debuted its Mavan staking platform in March to attract institutional clients alongside supporting its own treasury operations.

BMNR shares were unchanged in pre-market trading following the update.

Ether as 'wartime store of value'

Lee framed ether’s role as shifting beyond a speculative asset. Citing recent research by Etherealize, he said ETH is increasingly being treated as a "store of value" and collateral as digital assets gain traction in financial transactions.

He also added that ETH has outperformed the S&P 500 since the start of the Iran conflict and pointed to growing use cases such as tokenization and AI systems relying on public blockchains as a long-term tailwind for the asset.

"There is a lot of meaning to ETH being the best 'war-time store of value' and to ETH being the asset leading since the war started," said Lee.