Tom Lee‘s BitMine Builds $3 Billion Ethereum Stash, Now Third Largest Public Crypto Treasury

Bitcoin miner BitMine Immersion now has over $3 billion in Ethereum as the company races to stack the second biggest digital coin. 

The Peter Thiel-backed company now holds 833,137 ETH it bought at an average price of $3,491.86 per coin—making it the largest corporate ETH treasury, it said in a Monday statement. It added that it now ranks as the third largest public crypto treasury in the world, behind only software company Strategy and miner Mara Blockchain, which both hold Bitcoin. Twenty One‘s $4 billion Bitcoin stash would be good for third on the list of largest public treasuries, but the company‘s shares do yet trade publicly.

BitMine did not respond to Decrypt‘s request for comment.

The Nasdaq-listed firm said in a press release that it has reached its current ETH holdings in just 35 days.

"We have separated ourselves among crypto treasury peers by both the velocity of raising crypto NAV per share and by the high liquidity of our stock," BitMine‘s Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement.

Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors is the brains behind BitMine‘s ETH stacking strategy. The Wall Street bigwig has long been bullish on Bitcoin but in June said that Ethereum was making a comeback and could be the "next Bitcoin" as institutional investors express interest in the digital coin and its network. 

Ethereum was recently trading at nearly $3,679 per coin, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko, after jumping 5 over a 24-hour period. The coin is still 24 below its all-time high of $4,878 that it hit in 2021. 

Still, the coin has rallied by over 46 over a 30-day period as American investors have quickly piled into ETH exchange-traded funds. The vehicles have generated more than $9.5 billion in net inflows since their debut last year.

Ethereum treasuries like BitMine are following a model pioneered by Strategy—formerly MicroStrategy—which shifted from software development to buying Bitcoin in 2020. Strategy now holds 628,791 BTC worth over $72 billion. 

Other Nasdaq-listed companies have followed suit—albeit mostly smaller, lesser-known entities—by buying not only Bitcoin and Ethereum but also altcoins like Solana, XRP, and Toncoin. These companies have achieved at least short-term stock price gains, sometimes with massive spikes.

New York Stock Exchange-listed BitMine‘s (BMNR) stock has rallied over 650 since the end of June. It was recently trading at nearly $32 per share, up by nearly 1 on Monday.