Bitmine adds $74 million in Ethereum as Tom Lee says bull market is underway

Bitmine Immersion Technologies said it bought 27,562 Ethereum worth roughly $74 million this week. The purchase extends a weekly buying streak that began when the company launched its treasury strategy on June 30, 2025. The NYSE-listed company said Monday that it held 5,983,940 ETH worth about $16.1 billion at a reference price of $2,688 per coin. Those holdings represent 4.9% of Ethereum's total supply of 122.1 million tokens. Bitmine said it is 98% of the way toward its stated goal of controlling 5% of the network, a target it calls the Alchemy of 5%. Chairman Tom Lee said he believes a crypto bull market has been underway since late June. He attributed that view to a rotation from artificial intelligence stocks into crypto, stronger fundamentals around tokenization and the end of the four-year cycle. Lee said Ethereum has been the best-performing macro asset this quarter and has outpaced the S&P 500 by 6,519 basis points. He described that performance as a prelude to a stronger move in the fourth quarter if underweight institutions add exposure. Bitmine said its total holdings reached $17.1 billion as of Saturday when cash, other tokens and its moonshot investments were included. The total included 212 Bitcoin, $714 million in cash and marketable securities, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries and a $105 million position in Eightco Holdings. Bitmine remains the world's largest Ethereum treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury overall, behind Michael Saylor's Strategy. Strategy recently bought $76 million of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin topped $85,000 over the weekend as more than $648 million in short positions were liquidated. Bitmine also said 5,067,309 ETH, or about 85% of its holdings, was staked through its MAVAN platform for projected annualized revenue of roughly $357 million. Lee is scheduled to deliver the keynote at Korea Blockchain Week on September 30. Decrypt disclosed that Lee is one of several investors in Dastan, the parent company of Decrypt.