Bitmain Chairperson Tom Lee says the long Ether slump is finally cracking and the mini-crypto winter is officially ending.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies just dropped another $139 million into Ether last week, pushing its total stash to 4.6 million ETH and bringing the company tantalizingly close to owning 5% of the entire token supply.
Bitmine chairman Tom Lee called the end of the mini-crypto winter that’s been weighing on Ether for months. The firm has kept up an intense buying pace over the past three weeks because, in their base case, this drawn-out dip is almost done.
Last October crypto took a brutal hit. Bitcoin crashed hard from its all-time high above $126,000, and Ether slid from its August peak near $4,946. Everyone’s been wondering when the real rebound would kick in.
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Lee is pointing to the end of mini crypto winter
He points to the CLARITY Act gaining traction in Congress and crypto holding surprisingly steady even amid the recent chaos in Iran. He says these are clear signals that the mini-crypto winter is starting to melt away.
“As many have noticed, crypto and especially ETH has actually outperformed the broader market since the Iran situation heated up,” Lee noted.
“ETH is up 18% and has beaten equities by a whopping 2,450 basis points. Meanwhile, gold, the classic safe-haven play, has dropped more than 15%. Crypto is proving itself as a solid ‘wartime’ store of value.”
With the latest purchase of 65,341 Ether, Bitmine now sits on 4.6 million tokens, roughly 3.86% of the current circulating supply of about 120.6 million ETH.
To hit its ambitious 5% target, the company still needs roughly 1.4 million more tokens, which at today’s prices would cost around $2.9 billion.
Ether’s supply isn’t fixed, of course, it can shift depending on how much gets burned versus issued. But that hasn’t slowed Bitmine down. The firm has also staked more than three million of its ETH, putting that capital to work while it waits for the thaw.
Beyond Ether, Bitmine holds $1.1 billion in cash, 196 Bitcoin, a $200 million stake in Beast Industries (the media company from YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson), and a $95 million position in e-commerce platform Eightco Holdings.
2025 saw a wave of companies pivot hard into crypto, with Bitmine quickly rising to become the second-largest holder after Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy. Some analysts, like those at Standard Chartered, warn that not everyone will make it through the long haul, meaning weaker players might have to pivot again or quietly fade out.
Right now, StrategicEthReserve is tracking 67 big Ether treasury holders. Bitmine leads the pack by a mile, followed by SharpLink Gaming with 863,000 ETH and Ether Machine in third with 496,000.
If Lee is right and the mini-crypto winter really is in its final stretch, Bitmine’s aggressive accumulation could turn out to be one of the smartest moves of the cycle.
