Ether's steadiest buyer is almost done buying
Bitmine has scooped up ether every week since June 2025 — but its chairman says the buying spree ends at 5% of the circulating supply.
One of the most reliable sources of demand for ether is about to switch itself off. Tom Lee, chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies, told a Singapore conference on Wednesday that the company will stop accumulating ETH once its holdings reach 5% of the cryptocurrency's circulating supply — ending a weekly buying streak that began in June 2025.
Near the ceiling
Speaking at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Lee said the firm was close to "done stacking." Bitmine's latest update, published Monday, showed it bought another $41 million in ETH last week, lifting its holdings to 6,016,414 ETH — about 4.9% of the 122.1 million tokens in circulation and worth roughly $15.5 billion at Wednesday's price of around $2,580, according to CoinDesk.
Lee estimated about 100,000 more ETH would take the company to its 5% target. At last week's buying pace, that would take roughly six to seven more weeks — and the firm is sitting on $643 million in cash and marketable securities available for further purchases, more than double what it needs to finish the job.
A strategy five years in the making, done in one
Lee said the accumulation process was originally expected to take five years — and was completed in a little over a year, "all in the middle of a bear market."
The bet has been painful so far. Bitmine's ETH holdings carry about $4.5 billion in unrealized losses, according to DropsTab data cited by CoinDesk. Ether slid roughly 5% in the 24 hours before Lee's remarks, to its weakest level since September 20 — nearly twice bitcoin's decline amid broader crypto weakness. Bitmine's own stock closed down 5.91% at $24.65.
Why it matters
What made Bitmine unusual was the consistency: the company says it bought ether every single week since launching the strategy, creating a persistent bid in a market that often trades on narrative. When that bid disappears, ether loses one of its most dependable buyers — and the market will have to find new demand to replace it.
Crypto prices move fast — figures cited above reflect the source's reporting at publication time, not live market data.
Written by the BidAsk Newsroom. Based on reporting from the sources below.
Sources
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