Bitmine Inc., the crypto investment firm tied to Tom Lee, kept adding to its Ethereum position while the asset remained under heavy pressure. Arkham Intelligence said the firm recently bought 20,000 ETH worth about $46 million through FalconX, with the funds moved to a fresh wallet that matched Bitmine’s established accumulation pattern.
After the purchase, Bitmine remained the largest institutional holder of Ethereum mentioned in the source material. Its total position stands at about 4.285 million ETH, equal to roughly 3.55% of Ethereum’s total supply. A sizable share of those holdings has already been staked, allowing the firm to collect yield while waiting for a longer-term recovery in price.
Cost basis sits far above spot price
The article said Bitmine accumulated ETH at an average price of around $3,650 to $3,883 per coin. With Ethereum trading near $2,200, the firm is now carrying about $6 billion to $6.6 billion in unrealized losses. Those losses remain on paper, but the scale shows how deep the drawdown has become.
According to the same report, the position had briefly moved back into profit when ETH reached an all-time high in 2025. That reversed during the sharp market break in October 2025, and the rebound since then has been limited.
Stock pressure follows the ETH exposure
The weakness has also shown up in BMNR shares. The source said the stock closed at $22.35 on Feb. 3, down 1.97% on the day, and then slipped to $21.98 after hours, a further 1.66% decline. Over longer periods, BMNR was down 20.07% in one month, 46.42% over six months, and 20.18% year to date.
Tom Lee responded by arguing that critics were misreading the Ethereum treasury model. He said Bitmine was built to track ETH across market cycles rather than avoid short-term swings, and that unrealized losses during steep corrections were expected within that framework.
Ethereum price slides, but network metrics remain large
At the time referenced in the report, ETH was trading at $2,278, down 2% over 24 hours and 23.31% for the week. The token had also lost more than 50% from its 2025 peak. The article linked the decline to broad market deleveraging, extreme fear, bearish technical structure, and negative headlines tied to Bitmine’s losses, rather than any failure of the Ethereum network itself.
It also pointed to several metrics still supporting Ethereum’s long-term case: more than $11.431 billion in real-world asset tokenization on the network, $13.39 billion in ETH ETF total net assets, a stablecoin market cap of $160 billion on Ethereum-based platforms, and weekly DEX activity of $18.489 billion, up 56.39%. The source added that developer activity, transaction growth, and planned upgrades continue to support Ethereum’s position as a leading smart contract platform.