Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), the ether (ETH) treasury firm led by Chairman Thomas “Tom” Lee, purchased 101,901 ETH as of last week, bringing its total holdings to more than 5 million tokens of the second-largest cryptocurrency.
The purchase raised the company’s ETH treasury to 5,078,386 tokens, or about 4.21% of the circulating supply of ether, according to an update on Monday. Bitmine reached that milestone in about 10 months, since transitioning from a bitcoin miner to a digital asset treasury strategy firm in June.
“Bitmine ETH holdings surpassed 5 million last week,” Lee said. “This is an important milestone as the company moves towards acquiring 5% of the ETH supply.”
The latest purchase, worth about $236 million at current ETH prices, extends a streak of larger weekly purchases as Bitmine increases its position while most digital asset treasuries remain on the sidelines.
The company’s total cryptocurrency and cash holdings amount to $13.3 billion. In addition to its ETH position, the company owns 200 bitcoins. $940 million in cash and equity stakes, including investments in Worldcoin-focused Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings.
The company has also expanded its staking operations to generate returns on its ETH reserve. There are currently around 3.7 million tokens staked (approximately 73% of its holdings), generating around $264 million in annualized revenue. The company debuted its Mavan staking platform in March to attract institutional clients in addition to supporting its own treasury operations.
BMNR shares were unchanged in pre-market trading following the update.
Ether as a ‘store of value in times of war’
Lee framed ether’s role as something beyond a speculative asset. Citing recent research from Etherealize, he said ETH is increasingly being treated as a “store of value” and collateral as digital assets gain ground in financial transactions.
He also added that ETH has outperformed the S&P 500 since the start of the conflict with Iran and pointed to growing use cases, such as tokenization and artificial intelligence systems that rely on public blockchains, as a long-term tailwind for the asset.
“It is very meaningful that ETH is the best ‘wartime store of value’ and that ETH is the leading asset since the war began,” Lee said.
