BitMine Chairman Tom Lee: Company Will Stop Buying ETH After Holdings Reach 5% of Circulating Supply, Currently About 100,000 Short
Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, stated at TOKEN2049 in Singapore that the company will stop buying ETH once its holdings reach 5% of the circulating supply, calling this a hard cap. Currently, they are about 100,000 ETH short, which will take approximately six to seven weeks at last week's buying rate.
The company disclosed on Monday that it holds 6,016,414 ETH, approximately 4.9% of the circulating supply of 122.1 million ETH, valued at about $15.5 billion based on Wednesday's price of around $2,580. Last week, they purchased about $41 million more. Since initiating their treasury strategy in June 2025, the company claims to have made weekly purchases.
They also have $643 million in cash and tradable securities. At current prices, the remaining 100,000 ETH would require about $258 million, with cash covering more than twice that amount, meaning they do not need to raise additional funds for this purchase. Lee mentioned that he initially thought it would take five years, but it actually took just over a year, with accumulation occurring during a bear market.
The timing of purchases was not all at low points. A significant portion of the holdings was built during last year's bull market when prices were higher. According to DropsTab, the current ETH holdings have an unrealized loss of about $4.5 billion. After stopping purchases, this unrealized loss will remain on the balance sheet and will not reverse simply because they reach 5%.
ETH dropped about 5% in the past 24 hours on Wednesday, reaching its lowest point since September 20, with a decline nearly double that of Bitcoin. BitMine is listed on the NYSE and is currently the largest Ethereum treasury company. Lee stated that the 5% cap is intended to optimize shareholder value, and they will not increase holdings after reaching this limit.
The buyer is a publicly traded company exchanging cash and tradable securities for ETH, while the seller is the market that has been absorbing these weekly buy orders over the past year. The event is driven by the approaching hard cap, not by a new round of issuance. Approximately $258 million still needs to flow out to complete the remaining purchase, after which this weekly buy order will disappear. Existing shareholders benefit as they no longer need to dilute equity to fill the treasury, while the pricing of ETH that accounts for BitMine's weekly purchases is under pressure.
The 4.9% circulating holdings correspond to an unrealized loss of $4.5 billion. The remaining purchase is affordable and does not change the cost of the already purchased portion. Stopping purchases removes marginal demand, not inventory.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Tom Lee has long appeared with cycle judgments from Fundstrat, while BitMine has transitioned from an immersive mining company to an Ethereum treasury. The path directly follows the strategy of turning a public company into a Bitcoin treasury: first set a target as a percentage of supply, then use stock and cash to fill it. The difference is that Strategy did not publicly state a hard cap for Bitcoin holdings at a certain percentage of circulating supply, while BitMine has declared 5% as a hard cap. In an August 2026 interview with Bankless, he still left an opening saying, "depending on adoption, we will reassess in 2027 whether we can exceed 5%"; this time on stage, it changed to stop at the cap.
The capital path is a narrative of equity exchange for coins, then preparing to close the buying. The $643 million in cash is more than enough to cover the remaining purchase, so the last 100,000 ETH does not require additional issuance. The real exchange has already occurred: over the past year, they have bought 4.9% of the circulating supply, with costs falling in last year's high price range, resulting in an unrealized loss of about $4.5 billion according to DropsTab. Stopping purchases means no further dilution for shareholders, while for the market, it means the removal of a weekly buy order.
Comparable examples include Strategy's Bitcoin treasury after 2020, as well as subsequent followers like Metaplanet and Semler. The industry position is at the end of expansion: the first batch of treasury companies has either filled their targets or are close to doing so, while later entrants are still discussing increasing holdings. BitMine's inventory is the largest publicly traded ETH holding globally, with marginal buyers only remaining for six to seven weeks.
This represents a transfer of pricing power. The mechanism is that once 4.9% of the circulating supply is locked by one company, the price will no longer be supported by its continued buying, but rather determined by when it sells and whether the remaining market can absorb the weekly gap. The hard cap optimizes the amount of coins per share, which will no longer be diluted by new issuances, not the holding cost. Unrealized losses remain on the balance sheet, and stopping purchases simply prevents the loss positions from becoming larger.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Those who fill their targets will shift from demand to inventory.
The hard cap protects each share, not the cost.
A buyer present every week, stopping once means losing a piece of pricing.