Ethereum (ETH) funding firm Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), led by chairman Thomas “Tom” Lee, purchased 101,901 ETH as of last week, bringing its total holdings to more than 5 million of the second-largest cryptocurrency token.
According to an update on Monday, the purchase increases the company’s ETH vault count to 5,078,386 tokens, which represents approximately 4.21% of Ethereum’s circulating supply. Bitmine has reached this milestone in approximately 10 months since it transitioned from a Bitcoin miner to a digital asset financial strategy firm in June.
“Last week, Bitmine’s ETH holdings exceeded 5 million,” Lee said. “This is an important milestone as the company moves towards acquiring 5% of the ETH supply.”
The latest purchases, worth approximately $236 million at current ETH prices, continue a trend of larger weekly purchases as Bitmine increases its position while most digital asset treasuries remain on the sidelines.
The company’s holdings of cryptocurrency and cash total $13.3 billion. In addition to its ETH position, the company also holds 200 Bitcoins $940 million in cash and equity, including investments in Beast Industries and Worldcoin-focused Evenco Holdings.
The company has also expanded its staking operations to generate revenue from its ETH reserves. Approximately 3.7 million tokens (approximately 73% of its holdings) are currently staked, with annualized revenue of approximately $264 million. The company launched the Mavan staking platform in March to attract institutional clients and support its own financial operations.
BMNR stock was unchanged in premarket trading following the update.
Ethereum as a “Wartime Store of Value”
Lee defined Ethereum’s role as something beyond a speculative asset. Citing recent research from Etherealize, he said that as digital assets become more popular in financial transactions, ETH is increasingly viewed as a “store of value” and collateral.
He also added that ETH has outperformed the S&P 500 since the outbreak of the conflict in Iran, pointing to increasing use cases such as tokenization and artificial intelligence systems that rely on public blockchains as long-term drivers for the asset.
“It makes a lot of sense for ETH to become the best ‘wartime store of value,’ and for ETH to be the leading asset since the war began,” Lee said.