Tom Lee’s BitMine Slows Ethereum Buying Pace, Adding $62 Million in ETH

In brief

• BitMine added 26,659 ETH or about $62 million worth last week, decreasing its previous pace of ETH purchases.
• The firm now holds more than 5.2 million ETH, valued around $12.1 billion.
• Shares in the firm have fallen more than 43% in the last six months.

Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies took its foot off the gas last week, adding 26,659 ETH or around $62 million worth of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

The firm, which holds more than 5.2 million ETH valued around $12.1 billion, had been aggressively adding to its stash in the previous weeks, accumulating more than 100,000 ETH (or more than $230 million worth) in three straight periods. 

"We have decided to slow down our pace of weekly accumulation from >100,000 per week as we originally targeted reaching the 'Alchemy of 5%' target in late 2026,” said Chairman Tom Lee, in a statement. “Our previous pace of >100k weekly buys would have us reach 5% by mid-July."

(Disclaimer: Lee is an investor in Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan). 

The firm’s decision to shrink its Ethereum purchases was telegraphed last week when Lee told attendees of the Consensus crypto conference that “perhaps we want to accumulate at a somewhat slower pace, because there’s other things to be doing in crypto right now.” 

Despite a more modest purchase amount, the Ethereum treasury firm has surpassed 4.3% of the Ethereum circulating supply with its latest haul. BitMine is now more than 86% of the way to achieving its goal of 5% of the ETH circulating supply, or just over 6 million ETH based on its current circulating token count. 

ETH is down around 0.6% in the last 24 hours of trading, recently changing hands at $2,315. 

Lee, though, believes that “crypto spring” is beginning, with expectations that the second-largest crypto asset will start to move up as a new crypto bull cycle emerges. 

“If ETH closes above $2,100 at the end of May 2026, this would be the third consecutive monthly gain— this has never been seen in a crypto bear market,” he said. “Thus, a close above $2,100 would validate 'crypto spring' has arrived."

As it stands now, ETH would need to drop more than 9.6% from its Monday trading price to fall below the $2,100 level. Predictors on Myriad—the prediction market platform from Decrypt’s parent company—are leaning bullish when considering the token’s next price movement, favoring a jump to $3,000 before a slide to $1,500.

Shares of BMNR have risen about 0.5% since the opening bell, recently changing hands at $22.29. BMNR has jumped about 4.75% in the last month of trading, but shares are down more than 43% in the last six months.

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