TL;DR
- ETH trades near $2,970, 40% below its $4,950 August high; Lee says tax-loss selling peaks from 12/26 to 12/30.
- Bitmine bought $131M more ETH, taking December purchases to $1.4B; it holds 3.4% of supply, targets 5%, and projects $374M annual staking.
- Lee cites upgrades, a tokenised money market fund, and $20B in treasuries and ETFs; Bitmine stock is down 50%+ amid leverage criticism.
Bitmine Immersion is doubling down on Ether into the final week of 2025, even as prices remain under pressure. Ethereum is still about 40% below its August all-time high of $4,950 and was trading around $2,970, a gap Tom Lee ties to seasonal positioning. He argues year-end tax-loss selling is pushing down crypto and crypto equity prices, with the effect greatest from 12/26 to 12/30, so the firm is buying into softness rather than waiting for clarity. The latest purchase adds urgency to its 2026 pitch materially today.
Bitmine’s accumulation playbook
Bitmine announced it purchased another $131 million of Ethereum, lifting its December buying spree to $1.4 billion. Lee calls the company the largest “fresh money” buyer of Ethereum in the world, backed by institutional investors including Founders Fund and ARK Invest. The firm now holds about 3.4% of Ethereum’s circulating supply and is aiming for 5%, a stash worth just over $12 billion at the time of reporting. Staking is the monetisation layer, with projected annual income of $374 million, or over $1 million per day, estimated notably.
Lee’s “supercycle” framing leans on fundamentals that look increasingly institutional. Ethereum turned 10 this year and rolled out two major technical upgrades, and a major bank selected the network for its first tokenised money market fund. The Bank for International Settlements values the money market fund asset class at $9 trillion, and tokenisation puts Ethereum in the plumbing conversation rather than a speculative sidebar. Corporate treasuries and exchange-traded funds are also holding $20 billion worth of Ethereum, reinforcing the idea that demand is migrating into familiar wrappers. He calls it a long-term supercycle.
The friction is that conviction has not translated into equity performance. Bitmine stock has fallen more than 50% since September, and the broader cohort of crypto treasury companies has faced pressure, with some trading below the value of their underlying assets. Eurointelligence’s Wolfgang Münchau criticised borrowing to buy volatile assets in hopes they never break an “imaginary” support level, calling the approach “downright stupid.” Public markets will decide whether the supercycle is investable, not just plausible. For context, Bitcoin was down 1.9% to $87,594 and Ether down 1.3% to $2,970 overall.
