Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), the ether (ETH) treasury company led by Chairman Thomas “Tom” Lee, purchased 101,901 ETH last week, bringing its total holdings above 5 million tokens of the second-largest cryptocurrency.
The purchase brought the company’s ETH treasury to 5,078,386 tokens, or approximately 4.21% of the circulating ether supply, according to a Monday update. Bitmine reached this milestone in about 10 months, since pivoting from a Bitcoin miner to a digital asset treasury strategy company in June.
“Bitmine ETH holdings exceeded 5 million last week,” Lee said. “This is a major milestone as the company moves to acquire 5% of the ETH supply.”
The latest purchase, worth around $236 million at current ETH prices, continues a streak of larger weekly purchases as Bitmine strengthens its position while most digital asset treasuries stay on the sidelines.
The company’s total crypto and cash holdings stand at $13.3 billion. Alongside its ETH position, the company holds 200 bitcoins $940 million in cash and equity investments, including investments in Beast Industries and Worldcoin-focused Eightco Holdings.
The company has also expanded its staking operations to generate yield on its ETH reserve. Around 3.7 million tokens – or around 73% of its holdings – are now staked, generating around $264 million in annualized revenue. The company launched its Mavan staking platform in March to attract institutional clients while supporting its own treasury operations.
Shares of BMNR were unchanged in pre-market trading following the update.
Ether as a “store of value in war”
Lee defined ether’s role as going beyond a speculative asset. Citing a recent study 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 leveraging public blockchains as a long-term tailwind for the asset.
“It makes a lot of sense for ETH to be the best ‘wartime store of value’ and for ETH to be the leading asset since the war began,” Lee said.
