Written by: Logan Hitchcock
Compiled by: Saoirse, Foresight News
Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine. Image Credit: André Beganski/Decrypt
Key Points:
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Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, believes Ethereum has bottomed out for the year.
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Lee's company, the world's largest Ethereum treasury firm, increased its Ethereum holdings by $460 million last week, "putting its money where its mouth is."
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Lee stated that Ethereum could still 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 recently fell below the $3,000 mark.
The Chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies (who also serves as Chief Investment Officer of Fundstrat) stated that this Ethereum treasury company is currently proving its point 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 Decrypt's parent company Dastan. "We are buying more than twice as much Ethereum now compared to two weeks ago."
The treasury company recently made a substantial addition to its holdings of the asset — purchasing 138,452 ETH last week, worth approximately $460 million.
This is BitMine's largest purchase since it acquired over 200,000 ETH in October, and the company aims to hold 5% of Ethereum's circulating supply.
As of Wednesday, BitMine holds approximately 3.864 million ETH, 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, and ranks second among all cryptocurrency treasury firms — behind only Strategy, which holds over $61 billion worth of Bitcoin.
Additionally, BitMine holds 193 BTC (worth approximately $18 million) and $1 billion in cash.
Although the prices of both Bitcoin and Ethereum have retreated from their all-time highs, Ethereum has led the recent rebound: it is up about 8% over the past 7 days and is currently trading at $3,376; meanwhile, Bitcoin's price has been 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 final 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 dollar. Now, Wall Street wants to tokenize all assets, and they won't do that on Bitcoin — because they need a smart contract platform."
This view aligns with statements from BlackRock executives Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein last week, who said tokenization is the "next major evolution in market infrastructure."
Ethereum is leading this trend: according to data from RWA.xyz, it hosts $12.1 billion in tokenized real-world assets (RWA), accounting for nearly 66% of the total distributed assets.
