BitMine Scoops 82,353 ETH for $294M as Tom Lee Targets BTC $150k–$200k and ETH $7k Into Year-End

Sentiment cracked while BitMine Immersion Technologies kept buying. With ETH sliding more than 6% in the last 24 hours to roughly $3,617 and BMNR shares down over 8% Monday (about 25% lower over the past month), the publicly traded Ethereum treasury company purchased another 82,353 ETH—about $294 million in a week. The balance sheet now shows 3,395,422 ETH acquired at an average price of $3,909, pushing BitMine’s stake above 2.8% of the circulating Ethereum supply.

Chairman Tom Lee isn’t backing away from risk. He argued on CNBC that crypto is consolidating after a roughly $19 billion liquidation flush, highlighting that Ethereum stablecoin settlement volumes have surged and application revenues hit all-time highs—evidence, in his view, that fundamentals are outrunning price. He floated year-end scenarios with Bitcoin potentially reaching $150,000 to $200,000 and Ethereum near $7,000.

The single variable that really matters for BitMine now is concentration. Controlling more than 2.8% of ETH introduces powerful convexity for shareholders—and equally sharp mark-to-market whiplash. At current prices, the firm holds over $12.5 billion of ETH, making it the second-largest crypto treasury, behind Strategy, which holds more than $69 billion in Bitcoin. If ETH re-prices toward Lee’s $7,000 path, BitMine’s equity would likely behave like a high-beta warrant on Ethereum’s balance sheet. If ETH chops or leaks lower, the public-market penalty tends to be outsized as investors discount volatility, financing costs, and the potential need to raise capital.

There’s a signaling layer here too. Adding size into a drawdown often reads as a commitment to the asset’s long-term monetary premium. But public companies carrying multi-billion-dollar token inventories face a different audience: equity holders who watch daily NAV gaps and worry about liquidity, custody concentration, and governance over large treasuries. A 2.8% position may not threaten network security, yet it concentrates decision-making around large transfers or potential staking policies in one corporate entity—inevitably inviting scrutiny.

BitMine’s treasury is not a pure ETH monolith. The firm also reports 192 BTC worth around $20 million, a $62 million stake in EightCo Holdings (ORBS), and approximately $389 million in unencumbered cash—useful dry powder if volatility persists. In prediction markets, confidence in BitMine’s lead remains high: on Myriad, 95% of respondents expect the company to hold more ETH than the second-largest Ethereum treasury, SharpLine Gaming, at year-end. Myriad is a unit of Dastan.

Investors are left weighing Lee’s macro read—consolidation after a forced unwind, with on-chain activity strengthening—against the very public reality of a balance sheet built at an average $3,909 when spot trades below that. In crypto cycles, fundamentals frequently lead price with a lag; the question for BMNR is whether the market grants enough time for that lag to close.