Tom Lee indicates that Bitmine will 'complete its position building' after holding 5% of the circulating supply of Ethereum. This marks the end of a continuous buying phase that began in mid-2025, and also makes the company the largest holder of Ethereum funds in the world.
Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee stated that the company will cease purchasing Ethereum once its holdings reach 5% of the circulating supply of that cryptocurrency.
Bitmine holds over 6 million ETH, worth 15 billion US dollars, which is approximately 4.9% of the total supply. There are still about 100,000 tokens needed to reach the target.
Bitmine launched its treasury strategy in June 2025, and the steady purchases since then may have provided support for ETH, or they may not have; whereas ETH has since seen a significant decline.
Ethereum ETH is trading at $2,570.68. This second-largest cryptocurrency is about to lose one of its most consistent sources of demand, as the digital asset treasury company Bitmine BMNR, which focuses on Ethereum, is reporting at $24.98 and will soon stop accumulating this token after the market closes.
On Wednesday, at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, Chairman Tom Lee stated that the company will cease further purchases of ETH once its holdings reach 5% of the token's total circulating supply. This sets a hard cap on this round of buying frenzy and also makes Bitmine one of the largest holders of ETH in the world.
“We just need to get another 100,000 ETF to reach 5%,” he said. “Now we need to stop,” he added.
“We originally thought it would take five years,” Lee said on stage, “but in the end, it only took a little over a year. More importantly, we managed to accomplish all this during a bear market.”
At last week's buying pace, it would take about six to seven more weeks to acquire an additional 100,000 ETH, assuming the company continues to increase its holdings at roughly the same rate.
According to the data updated on Monday, the company holds $643 million in cash and marketable securities that can be used for further purchases of ETH; at current prices, this amount exceeds more than twice the funds required to buy the remaining ETH to reach the 5% target.
The importance of the impending end of the buying momentum Bitmine lies in the fact that the company has provided exceptionally stable demand. Bitmine indicates that since the launch of the Ethereum treasury strategy in June 2025, the company has been making purchases ETH every week.
However, a large portion of these purchases occurred during last year's crypto bull market when prices were higher, which means that Bitmine is currently suffering from significant floating losses on this Ethereum bet. According to data collected by DropsTab, the company's ETH position has a floating loss of up to $4.5 billion.
On Wednesday, Ethereum was already under pressure against the backdrop of a weaker broader crypto market. In the past 24 hours, ETH fell by 5%, reaching its lowest level since September 20, with a decline that is nearly twice that of Bitcoin's BTC, which reported $83,511.47.
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