'Crypto bull market is underway,' Tom Lee says as Bitmine nears 5% Ethereum supply target with 27,562 ETH buy

Tom Lee-chaired Ethereum (ETH) treasury company Bitmine's (BMNR) holdings have reached 5,983,940 ETH — worth around $16.3 billion at current prices — following its latest weekly acquisitions.

Bitmine bought another 27,562 ETH since its last update on Sept. 14, reporting Monday that its total crypto, cash, marketable securities, and other investments stood at $17.1 billion. Bitmine did not disclose the average purchase price, but at current prices, its latest acquisition is worth around $75 million.

"We believe a crypto bull market is underway, having started in late June, driven by a multitude of factors including the rotation from AI back to crypto, strengthening crypto fundamentals centered around both tokenization and AI and lastly, the ending of the 4-year cycle," Lee said in the statement. "Quarter to date, ETH is outperforming by 6,519bp, dwarfing other macro assets."

"To us, this massive outperformance of ETH in 3Q26 is viewed as a prelude to a potentially stronger up move in the 4th quarter of 2026," Lee added. "Given that institutions have underweighted crypto in 2026, partially due to the outperformance of AI stocks in early 2026, we expect institutions to substantially increase their exposure in the final 3 months of 2026. We believe this could add meaningful upside to the gains seen since June 30."

As of Sept. 20, Bitmine also holds 212 BTC ($18.1 million), a $105 million stake in Eightco Holdings, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries, and total cash and marketable securities of $714 million, it said.

The company's ETH holdings are equivalent to more than 4.9% of Ethereum's current circulating supply, which sits at approximately 122.1 million ETH, according to The Block's ether price page. Bitmine is now 98% of the way toward its "Alchemy of 5%" supply target within 15 months of embarking on its Ethereum treasury strategy.

Meanwhile, Bitmine's total staked Ethereum stands at 5,067,309 ETH ($13.8 billion), according to the firm. "Bitmine has staked more ETH than other entities in the world. At scale (when Bitmine's ETH is fully staked by MAVAN and its staking partners), the projected ETH staking reward would be $421 million on an annualized basis," Lee said. "Annualized staking revenues are now projected at $357 million. And this 5.1 million ETH is 85% of the 5.98 million ETH held by Bitmine. Bitmine's own staking operations generated a 7-day yield of 2.62% (annualized)."

DAT race

Bitmine remains the largest Ethereum treasury holder, followed by Joe Lubin's Sharplink and The Ether Machine, with approximately 888,938 ETH and 496,712 ETH, respectively, according to SER data.

Bitmine is also the second-largest public crypto treasury company overall, behind Michael Saylor's Strategy, which holds 846,000 BTC ($71.9 billion) following its latest weekly acquisition, also announced on Monday — equivalent to over 4% of bitcoin's 21 million supply cap.