Tom Lee's Bitmine Buys Another $31 Million in Ethereum, But There's a Catch

Bitmine Chair Tom Lee is still buying Ethereum — but it seems like the buying spree is running out of gas.

Lee announced his Ethereum treasury company Bitmine purchased another $31.6 million in ETH last week, but also made clear that the company does not intend to acquire more than 5% of the total outstanding supply. As of Monday, his company sits at 4.9% of outstanding ETH, or 6.03 million tokens, meaning purchases are just a few months away from starting to run off

"The accumulation of a majority of our 6 million ETH took place in the midst of a crypto bear market and with the Company nearing our 5% ETH accumulation target, we believe the company is attractively positioned ahead of the coming crypto bull," Lee said in a new release.

But despite the current macro set up potentially triggering the "largest ever crypto bull market" according to Lee, he believes 5% is the right overall level to target for now. As Lee recently highlighted in an interview with Coinage, the thinking is that new assets being tokenized on Ethereum will provide a larger and larger bid for blockspace — potentially reducing the need of a price-insensitive buyer like Bitmine.

That is a bit of a break from the thinking last year, when Lee told Coinage at Korea Blockchain Week that 10% of all outstanding Ethereum could potentially be a suitable target.