Tom Lee’s BitMine Buys $1.1 Billion in Ethereum and Sells Stock, Shares Fall 10%

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin miner BitMine Immersion bought more Ethereum last week, bringing its total holdings to 2.42 million ETH after its biggest buy so far in September. But its stock price is down on the day, following both the ETH purchase announcement and a new share sale.

The firm, which pivoted in May from Bitcoin mining to raising money to buy ETH, now holds over $10 billion in the second-largest digital coin by market cap—or 2% of the total supply.

BitMine holds the largest Ethereum treasury of any publicly traded firm, and the second-largest overall crypto treasury behind Bitcoin giant Strategy’s $72 billion BTC stockpile.

In a Monday announcement, BitMine said that it also held 192 Bitcoin worth $21.6 million, unencumbered cash of $345 million, and a $175 million stake in crypto treasury Eightco. In total, the company has $11.4 billion on its balance sheet. 

Shares of BitMine (BMNR) were trading almost 10% lower on Monday at a price of $55.30. BMNR remains up more than 3% over the last month, per data from Yahoo Finance.

“BitMine ETH holdings now exceed 2% of supply as we move towards our ‘Alchemy of 5%’ of ETH supply,” BitMine Chairman and Fundstrat Global Advisors Managing Partner Tom Lee said in a statement. 

He added: “We continue to believe Ethereum is one of the biggest macro trades over the next 10-15 years.”

The company also announced Monday that it had entered a deal to sell $365.2 million worth of shares to an unnamed institutional investor, with the sale set to be completed on or around Tuesday.

BitMine has been issuing debt and looking for ways to raise money so it can buy ETH since May. 

Lee is the brains behind BitMine’s ETH stacking strategy. Lee has long been bullish on Bitcoin, but in June said that Ethereum was making a comeback and could be the “next Bitcoin” as institutional investors express interest in the digital coin and its network. 

Ethereum was recently trading at nearly $4,180 per coin, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko, after dropping nearly 7% over a 24-hour period. 

Ethereum is the crypto network behind ETH, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap after Bitcoin. The network is used by developers to build decentralized applications and launch tokens. Lee believes that the rising profile of stablecoins, which are heavily used on Ethereum, show how useful the network can be.

President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July, creating a regulatory framework for issuing the assets in the U.S. A number of top companies and banks are working to issue the digital tokens in the hope to make payments cheaper and more seamless.