Bitmine Bags 125K ETH While Tom Lee Whispers "Maybe Slow Down" 🐢

Bitmine, the Ethereum treasury firm chaired by Tom Lee, has accumulated 125,000 ETH, worth roughly $206 million, over the past three days, including a 25,000 ETH purchase valued at $41.09 million acquired from BitGo. The buys come as $ETH trades near $1,661.50, down from approximately $2,000 at the end of May, and was up 2.85% over the prior 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.

Bitmine's total holdings now stand at 5,543,872 ETH, equal to 4.59% of Ethereum's 120.7 million circulating supply, following a buying streak that began in mid-2025 and has seen the company acquire more than 5.5 million ETH in total. Tom Lee has signaled the accumulation pace may slow once the company approaches a 5% target of total supply, a threshold he has described as the point at which the strategy's logic fully plays out. The announcement lifted BMNR stock 694% when the treasury strategy was first unveiled.

The buying has coincided with continued pressure on $ETH, which is down roughly 44% year-to-date and more than 55% below its August 2025 all-time high of $4,953. Spot $ETH ETFs recorded 17 consecutive days of net outflows in May, draining $401 million, and Farside Investors data shows June has brought inflows of just $101.7 million against outflows of $270.1 million so far. JPMorgan analysts have said $ETH is unlikely to reverse its multi-year underperformance against $BTC without meaningful improvements in network activity and real-world adoption.

Lee has publicly pushed back on the bearish narrative, telling Ric Edelman, "The entire financial system today is built on tech stack on top of tech stack and there's a lot of fake/fraudulant transactions. Ether (and btc) has had zero fraudulent transactions. Blockchains are also much cheaper to run." On-chain data from AMBCrypto indicates 4.72 million ETH from Bitmine's reserves are currently staked, suggesting a long-term holding posture rather than active distribution. Ethereum's Spot Taker CVD also shifted from heavy sell-side dominance in May to buy-side dominance in June, a change consistent with renewed spot accumulation rather than continued distribution.