Tom Lee's BitMine Adds More Ethereum as Strategy Takes a Break From Bitcoin Buying
BitMine Immersion Technologies added 71,179 ETH (worth about $146 million), raising its total holdings to over 4.73 million ETH (about $9.7 billion) along with 197 BTC and $961 million in cash. This accumulation occurred while crypto treasury firm Strategy paused its regular weekly Bitcoin purchases, a common move during quarter-end. BitMine’s chairman, Tom Lee, noted that Ethereum and crypto have outperformed equities and gold during the ongoing Iran conflict, with ETH rising 8% in the past month, gold falling 13%, and major stock indices dropping over 7%. Lee mentioned a strong inverse correlation between crypto/equities and oil prices, with rising oil acting as a headwind. Despite their large crypto holdings—BitMine with over $7 billion in paper losses on Ethereum, and Strategy with $6.2 billion in losses on Bitcoin—both firms’ shares are slightly up recently but remain more than 60% down over six months, reflecting the 46-58% declines in Bitcoin and Ethereum prices from their all-time highs.
