BitMine Immersion Technologies bought 53,501 ETH last week, its largest single purchase since June, pushing its Ethereum treasury to 5.9 million tokens. Chairman Tom Lee tied the buying spree to ether's outperformance this quarter, which he says could pull in more institutional buyers.
BitMine bought 53,501 ETH over the past week, a purchase worth about $131.3 million at Monday's ether price of $2,455. It is the firm's largest weekly haul since June and follows the previous week's 32,447 ETH buy.
Holdings near the 5% target
The purchase lifted BitMine's ether stash to 5,901,112 tokens, worth roughly $14.5 billion at current prices. That is about 4.9% of Ethereum's 120.7 million token supply, putting the company's self-imposed goal of owning 5% of all ether within reach. At the current supply level, that threshold sits near 6.04 million ETH, leaving BitMine about 134,000 tokens short.
The pickup marks a shift from earlier this summer, when weekly purchases fell below 10,000 ETH several times in July and August as the company neared its target. In the past two weeks alone, though, BitMine has acquired almost 86,000 ETH, a sharp acceleration from that summer pace.
Lee cites crypto's strong quarter
The renewed buying follows a strong quarter for crypto markets. Ether rallied 55% so far in August, while bitcoin advanced 34%, comfortably outperforming U.S. stock indexes. According to CoinDesk, that should set the stage for institutions to add to their crypto holdings given the "substantial outperformance of crypto versus other macro assets in 3Q so far", Lee said.
Lee also pointed to a potential U.S. market-structure bill vote in September and renewed crypto demand from Korean investors as possible catalysts for the rest of the year. He expects tokenization and blockchain use by AI agents to support ether over a longer horizon.
Consistent buyer even as rivals paused
BitMine has now bought ETH for 65 consecutive weeks since launching its Ethereum treasury strategy in June 2025, even as other major crypto buyers such as Strategy and Metaplanet paused their acquisitions amid market uncertainty. The company has also staked about 5.07 million ETH, or 86% of its holdings. It projects roughly $335 million in annualized staking revenue at current yields.
Sources: CoinDesk, CryptoPotato
Trading involves risk.