Tom Lee’s Bitmine Buys Another $19 Million in Ethereum as Stash Nears 5% of Total Supply

Tom Lee’s Bitmine Buys Another $19 Million in Ethereum as Stash Nears 5% of Total Supply

Mon, August 17, 2026 at 6:47 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• BMNR +4.67%
• ETH-USD +1.15%

Bitmine Immersion Technologies has purchased another 9,926 Ethereum tokens, worth roughly $19 million, bringing its total holdings to 5.82 million ETH. The company's Ethereum treasury is now worth about $11 billion, putting the crypto treasury firm within striking distance of its goal to own 5% of ETH's circulating supply.

In an announcement on Monday, Bitmine said its treasury now includes 5,815,164 ETH and $11.4 billion in total crypto, cash, and other holdings. Its Ethereum position represents 4.8% of ETH's 120.7 million circulating supply.

Chairman Tom Lee said Bitmine is 96% of the way to its self-described "Alchemy of 5%" target, which the company set when it began buying ETH weekly 14 months ago. (Disclosure: Tom Lee is an investor in Dastan, Decrypt's parent company.)

"This ratio has moved above the long-term downtrend in place over the last few years and is a sign, in our view, that markets are beginning to see materialization of tokenization and agentic-AI applications, which should benefit Ethereum," Lee said in a statement, referring to ETH's rising price ratio against Bitcoin. "We expect easing financial conditions to be a tailwind for crypto."

Beyond Ethereum, Bitmine holds 210 Bitcoin, worth around $13.4 million, $78 million in cash and securities, and stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings worth $180 million and $73 million, respectively. The company has also staked 5,067,309 ETH through its MAVAN validator network.

Bitmine has bought ETH every week since launching its treasury strategy last summer. In April, it made two purchases worth roughly $235 million each, including 10,000 ETH bought directly from the Ethereum Foundation, taking its holdings above 5 million ETH.

In June, Bitmine added $214 million in ETH during a crypto selloff that Lee called "superficial." In July, it bought another $49 million worth. By early August, its share of Ethereum's circulating supply had remained at 4.8%.

The price of Ethereum today is up roughly 1.4%, with ETH now trading hands above $1,900. Traders on Myriad, the prediction market created by Decrypt's parent company, remain mostly bearish on the token, currently pricing in 75% odds that ETH heads back down to $1.5k before returning to $3k per token.