In brief

• Bitmine bought another 12,535 ETH, raising its holdings to 6,041,481 ETH (about $14.3 billion), or 4.9% of supply—99% of the way to its “Alchemy of 5%” target.
• Chairman Tom Lee blamed recent crypto weakness on a broad risk-off shift—AI funding and safety fears, U.S.-Iran tensions, midterm jitters and rising bond yields—and called the dip a historically attractive risk-reward entry.
• Total holdings hit $15.1 billion, and Bitmine remains the top ETH treasury.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies kept its weekly Ethereum buying streak alive, adding 12,535 ETH worth about $30 million, even as a market-wide selloff battered crypto prices and the firm closed in on the end of its accumulation.

The NYSE-listed company said Monday its holdings now total 6,041,481 ETH, valued at roughly $14.3 billion at a reference price of $2,365 per coin. That represents 4.9% of Ethereum’s 122.1 million token supply, leaving Bitmine, by its own count, 99% of the way to its goal of owning 5% of the network, a target it calls the “Alchemy of 5%,” reached in just 15 months.

The purchase extends a run that hasn’t paused since Bitmine launched its treasury strategy on June 30, 2025, buying Ethereum every week since. Chairman Tom Lee has said the company is nearly finished stacking and will stop once it hits the 5% threshold. (Disclosure: Tom Lee is one of several investors in Dastan, Decrypt’s parent company.)

This latest buy lands with the firm underwater on paper, a consequence of accumulating much of its stash last year at higher prices, with ETH now trading well below its highs.

Lee pinned the recent weakness on a broad contraction in risk appetite, citing anxiety over AI funding and model safety, escalating U.S.-Iran tensions, midterm-election jitters, and rising global bond yields.

He argued that selloffs in AI and semiconductor stocks in markets like Korea and Taiwan, where crypto is widely held, spilled over into digital assets, and framed the dip as a historically attractive risk-reward entry when fundamentals stay strong.

Counting cash, other tokens and what it calls “moonshot” investments, Bitmine’s total holdings reached $15.1 billion as of Oct. 18, including 215 Bitcoin, $582 million in cash and marketable securities, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries and a $74 million position in Eightco Holdings, which it bills as a rare public proxy for indirect OpenAI exposure.

Bitmine remains the world’s largest Ethereum treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury overall, trailing only Michael Saylor’s Strategy, which holds about 848,250 BTC.

Strategy recently added another $22 million in Bitcoin while buying back preferred stock. Bitmine has 5,067,309 ETH, about 84% of its holdings, staked through its MAVAN platform, with projected annualized revenue of roughly $309 million.

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.