Tom Lee says ‘crypto winter is much closer to ending’ as Bitmine buys another 101,627 ETH

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) increased its ether treasury to 4,976,485 ETH tokens, giving it control of 4.12% of the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, the company said Monday.

At $2,301 per ETH, the treasury is worth roughly $11.45 billion, positioning Bitmine as the largest corporate ether holder globally and the second-largest corporate crypto treasury overall, trailing only Strategy's $58.2 billion bitcoin position, according to a statement.

The latest figure marks an increase of 101,627 ETH in the past week and places the company within 82% of its stated goal of acquiring 5% of the total ether supply of 120.7 million.

Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee said the company has been purchasing ether consistently in the past four weeks, with the prior week’s acquisition marking its largest pace of buys since the week of Dec. 15, 2025. He noted the company’s base case is that ether is in the "final stages of the 'mini-crypto winter.'"

Lee stated that the current crypto winter is "much closer to ending," citing that while every major drawdown since 2015 coincided with an equity decline of at least 20%, the 2026 equity decline has been limited to 8%. He added that Ethereum continues to benefit from "dual tailwinds" of institutional tokenization on the blockchain and demand from agentic AI systems requiring neutral public ledgers.

Ether traded above $2,300 on Monday. The token remains roughly 53% below its August 2025 all-time high of $4,946.

Staking scale and balance sheet

Bitmine reported 3,334,637 ETH staked, representing about $7.7 billion at current prices, with annualized staking revenues cited at $221 million. Lee projected that once fully staked through the newly launched MAVAN validator network and partners, ETH staking rewards could reach about $330 million annually, based on a 2.88% yield assumption.

Beyond its ether holdings, Bitmine reported total cash of $1.12 billion, 199 bitcoin, a $200 million stake in Beast Industries, and a $107 million stake in Eightco Holdings.

Bitmine shares closed Friday's session at $22.95, up 2.27% on the day.