Oct 7, 2026, 8:40 a.m. EDT
2 min read
Summary
- Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee stated the business will cease buying ether once its reserves hit 5% of the overall circulating supply of the cryptocurrency.
- Bitmine currently holds in excess of 6 million ETH, valued at $15 billion, which equals 4.9% of the supply, and requires approximately 100,000 additional tokens to fulfill its goal.
- Bitmine launched its reserve strategy back in June 2025, and its consistent purchases may or may not have helped provide support for ETH, which has fallen steeply since then.
Ether ETH$2,563.00, ranking as the second-largest digital asset, is preparing to lose one of its most steadfast demand drivers as Ethereum-focused treasury entity Bitmine BMNR $24.80·Market Closed prepares to halt token acquisitions.
Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine, speaking on Wednesday at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, announced that the organization will stop accumulating ETH as soon as its inventory touches 5% of the circulating token supply, placing a definite cap on a purchasing spree that has positioned the company as one of the principal ETH owners globally.
“We only need to get another 100,000 ETF to get to 5%,” he remarked. “Now we’re going to stop,” he added.
Bitmine stands nearly at that specific target. In its recent update, the enterprise reported Monday that it acquired an extra $41 million worth of ETH during the prior week, bringing its total inventory to 6,016,414 ETH, representing roughly 4.9% of the 122.1 million circulating tokens. At the Wednesday trading price of roughly $2,580 for ether, that asset pool totals approximately $15.5 billion.
“We thought this would take five years,” Lee noted while on stage. “It took us a little over a year. More importantly, we did this all in the middle of a bear market.”
At the acquisition velocity seen last week, collecting another 100,000 ETH would require around six to seven additional weeks, assuming the firm maintains its current pace of accumulation.
The business maintained $643 million in liquid cash and marketable securities available for additional ETH purchases, according to the report from Monday, amounting to more than double the capital required to acquire the remaining ETH needed to achieve the 5% objective at prevailing market prices.
The approaching cessation of Bitmine’s buying is significant because the organization has supplied remarkably consistent market demand. Bitmine notes it has purchased ETH on a weekly basis ever since initiating its ether treasury initiative in June 2025.
Nevertheless, a significant portion of those acquisitions occurred during the previous year’s crypto bull run at elevated valuations, implying that Bitmine is currently enduring heavy unrealized losses on its ether investment. The entity’s ETH stockpile accounts for $4.5 billion in unrealized losses, based on statistics compiled by DropsTab.
Ether was already facing downward pressure on Wednesday amid widespread weakness across the crypto sector. ETH dropped 5% over the prior 24 hours down to its lowest price point since September 20, falling nearly twice as fast as bitcoin BTC$83,207.05 against the backdrop of broader market softness.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/10/07/ether-is-about-to-lose-a-steady-buyer-as-tom-lee-says-bitmine-will-stop-token-purchases.
