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 , $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.