Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine. Image Credit: André Beganski/Decrypt
Key Points:
- Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, believes Ethereum has hit its bottom for the year.
- Lee's company, the world's largest Ethereum treasury firm, increased its holdings by $460 million worth of Ethereum last week, "putting its money where its mouth is."
- Lee stated that Ethereum is still expected to perform strongly before the end of the year; and over the next 10 to 15 years, he is more optimistic about Ethereum's development prospects compared to Bitcoin.
Tom Lee believes that the price of Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has bottomed out after it fell below the $3,000 mark recently.
The Chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies (who also serves as Chief Investment Officer of Fundstrat) stated that this Ethereum treasury company is currently backing its view with action by significantly increasing its Ethereum holdings at current price levels.
"BitMine believes the price of Ethereum has bottomed," Lee said in a video interview with Farokh Sarmad, President of Dastan, the parent company of Decrypt. "We are buying more than twice as much Ethereum now compared to two weeks ago."
The Ethereum treasury company recently significantly increased its holdings of the asset — purchasing 138,452 Ethereum last week, worth approximately $460 million.
This is BitMine's largest purchase since it acquired over 200,000 Ethereum in October, and the company aims to hold 5% of Ethereum's circulating supply.
As of Wednesday, BitMine holds approximately 3.864 million Ethereum, representing 3.2% of Ethereum's circulating supply, with a market value of $12.85 billion. Currently, the company is the largest publicly traded holder of Ethereum treasury reserves, ranking second among all cryptocurrency treasury firms — second only to Strategy, which holds over $61 billion worth of Bitcoin.
Additionally, BitMine holds 193 Bitcoin (worth approximately $18 million) and $1 billion in cash.
Although the prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum have retreated from their all-time highs, Ethereum has recently led the rebound: it has risen about 8% in the past 7 days and is currently trading at $3,376; meanwhile, Bitcoin's price has remained largely flat over the past week, recently trading at $92,248.
The BitMine executive (BitMine stock ticker: BMNR) stated that he believes both assets could experience significant volatility before the end of the year.
Previously, Lee had predicted that Bitcoin could reach a high of $150,000 by the end of 2025; however, as Bitcoin's price remained below $100,000 in the last week of November, he softened his stance, saying Bitcoin "maybe" could still reach that target.
Regardless, Lee and BitMine are more optimistic about Ethereum's development over the next 10 to 15 years — especially as Wall Street has embraced this Layer-1 blockchain network and recognized its role in the future financial landscape.
"The reason we are bullish on Ethereum is that Wall Street is choosing its blockchain for future development," Lee said. "This trend started with stablecoins — an important 'aha moment' for Wall Street... but stablecoins are just tokenizing the U.S. dollar. Now, Wall Street wants to tokenize all assets, and they won't achieve that on Bitcoin — because they need a smart contract platform."
This view aligns with statements from BlackRock executives Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein — who stated last week that tokenization is "the next major evolution in market infrastructure."
Ethereum is leading this trend: according to RWA.xyz data, Ethereum hosts $12.1 billion in tokenized real-world assets (RWA), accounting for nearly 66% of the total distributed asset share.
