对话Tom Lee：Bitmine买下ETH总量的近5%不是终点，ETH目标价上看1万美元

Compiled & Edited by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: Tom Lee (Chairman of the Board, BitMine Immersion Technologies; Co-Founder & Head of Research, Fundstrat Global Advisors; CIO, Fundstrat Capital)

Host: David Hoffman (Bankless)

Podcast Source: Bankless

Original Video Title: BitMine Is About to Own 5% of ETH | Tom Lee

Release Date: August 24, 2026

Conflict of Interest Disclosure: BitMine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR), where Tom Lee serves as Chairman, is the largest institutional holder of Ethereum globally, holding approximately 5.8476 million ETH as of August 23, representing about 4.8% of the total supply. Lee is also a personal investor in BitMine. His firm, Fundstrat Capital, operates the GRNY ETF, and Fundstrat's core business model relies on paid research subscriptions. Lee's personal wealth is highly correlated with the price of ETH, BMNR's stock price, and GRNY's performance. All viewpoints regarding Ethereum and the crypto market in this episode align with his significant financial interests. We advise readers to consider these interests when evaluating the content.

Key Takeaways

• BitMine grew its ETH holdings from 0 to approximately 5.82 million ETH in 14 months, representing nearly 4.9% of the total supply, and is only about 3% away from its 5% target.
• This was accomplished entirely through equity financing, with no debt or convertible bonds; Lee describes this as "keeping the capital structure clean."
• BitMine has purchased ETH every week for over 60 consecutive weeks. In the last 5 weeks, it shifted to a combination of "ETH purchases + stock buybacks," dynamically adjusting based on return on capital.
• It is highly likely they won't stop after reaching 5%, provided institutions begin holding ETH as a long-term asset; the real evaluation point is 2027.
• BitMine does not rely on selling ETH to cover expenses. Its annualized staking yield of approximately $300 million is sufficient to cover the roughly $30-35 million annual dividend on its 9.5% preferred stock (BMNP).
• Lee compares ETH to "equities/land," emphasizing its core attribute is store of value, rather than a bond-like cash flow asset.
• He provided price targets: ETH should exceed $5,000 in the next bull market cycle; if combined with Wall Street tokenization and AI demand, it could "easily" break $10,000 within 1-2 years.

Highlight Reel

• "ETH is a yield-bearing asset. BitMine has no need to sell any ETH due to financial pressure." - Tom Lee, on whether BitMine will sell ETH
• "If you think of the stock market as a cash flow machine, the S&P 500 has risen about 10x over the past 15 years, but dividends only contributed 30% of that. The remaining 9.7x is unrelated to cash flow. The stock market is essentially a store of value." - Tom Lee, on whether ETH is a store of value or a cash flow asset
• Lee likens BMNP to a three-year at-the-money call option on ETH: the company pays a 9.5% annual dividend for the right to lock in more ETH at current prices; buying an equivalent call option on the open market would likely cost nearly 100% in premiums. - Tom Lee, explaining the rationale behind issuing 9.5% perpetual preferred stock
• "The more AI develops, the more important crypto becomes. Crypto is the downstream story of AI." - Tom Lee, on the relationship between AI and crypto

Main Content

1. Reaching Nearly 5% in 14 Months: What BitMine Did Right

On June 30, 2025, BitMine announced its transition into an Ethereum treasury company, aiming to acquire 5% of the ETH supply. At the time, both Bankless hosts privately thought "buying 5% was simply impossible." Fourteen months later, BitMine's holdings have reached approximately 5.82 million ETH, close to 4.9% of the total supply of 120.7 million. Host David Hoffman noted at the opening that this is one of the rare cases in the digital asset treasury (DAT) space that "not only didn't end up in the graveyard but exceeded expectations."

Tom Lee attributes the success to three factors.

First, the messaging has been consistently simple. He told investors the capital structure would remain clean: utilizing equity financing only, with no debt or convertible bonds. Second, he positioned the ETH purchases as "helping the Ethereum ecosystem," ensuring the 5% target was significant without becoming a source of excessive centralization. Third, he respects investors' intelligence by not pushing the stock price up weekly with narratives, instead emphasizing a multi-year time frame. Lee quoted Michael Saylor: you need a four-year time horizon to evaluate such companies, not weekly price fluctuations.

More importantly, BitMine has executed almost every financing round at a premium to Net Asset Value (NAV, the value of underlying holdings per share). The ETH backing per share has grown more than tenfold from the initial trading level of roughly $450. This means early shareholders' exposure to ETH per share has been significantly amplified, which is also the core reason the stock price has held above $450.

2. Buying for Over 60 Consecutive Weeks: Where Does the Money Come From?

Even more impressive than the size of the holdings is the purchasing discipline. BitMine has bought ETH every single week since its transition, marking over 60 consecutive weeks. During the same period, Strategy (MSTR) has paused bitcoin purchases multiple times and even sold some bitcoin. Lee explained that their ability to keep buying comes down to "each week, we only do the thing with the highest return on capital."

Over the last 5 weeks, BitMine's cash usage has shifted to a combination of "ETH purchases + stock buybacks." Lee said that as ETH potentially approaches a major move by year-end, the company becomes more tactical: continuing to accumulate ETH while also buying back stock, as buybacks concentrate the ETH content per share.

There are three primary sources of funds.

• Issuing common stock at a premium to Net Asset Value (NAV): This is the primary cash source, but used judiciously.
• Buying ETH at a discount: Lee revealed that over the past 14 months, most ETH was not purchased at spot prices but through structured arrangements that provided discounts, which is value-accretive for shareholders.
• Perpetual preferred stock BMNP: Issued in June with a 9.5% dividend, it was over five times oversubscribed. Priced at $80 at issuance, it traded around $91 when the show aired. Lee describes it as "paying a 9.5% annual yield to buy a three-year at-the-money call option on ETH," whereas an equivalent option on the open market could cost nearly 100% of the premium.

Staking rewards themselves are compounding. BitMine currently has over 5 million ETH staked through its self-operated Maven staking platform and partner platforms. At an annualized staking yield of approximately 2.6% to 2.7%, this generates roughly 120,000 new ETH annually. Lee calculates: to reach 5%, they need about 200,000 more ETH, but staking alone "automatically produces" around 120,000 ETH per year, meaning they only need to purchase an additional ~80,000 ETH to hit the target.

3. What Happens After 5%: Three Possibilities, But Selling ETH Isn't High on the List

The biggest question on the market's mind: once BitMine reaches 5%, will this largest ETH buying machine shut down?

Lee offered two directions. First, 5% is not necessarily a hard cap. If corporations begin holding ETH as a long-term asset in the future, it would be "perfectly reasonable" for BitMine to continue buying beyond 5%, but this question should be re-evaluated in 2027. Second, even if it stops at 5%, staking rewards will still naturally grow their holdings; at that point, BitMine might choose to sell the rewards to control the total percentage, but it will not sell coins due to financial pressure.

He reiterated that BitMine has no need to sell ETH. Annualized staking yield is around $300 million, while the annual dividend burden on the 9.5% preferred stock is roughly $30-35 million, providing a very high coverage ratio. The company doesn't even convert these staking rewards into dollars or stablecoins. Rather than selling coins, Lee prefers to "find ways to monetize the ETH asset," such as deploying the currently unstaked ~800,000 ETH into scenarios useful to the ecosystem.

This leads to BitMine's second transformation: from a treasury company that simply buys ETH into an Ethereum ecosystem company. The Maven staking platform, besides managing BitMine's own ETH, has already attracted over $2 billion in external client assets. Lee calls it a "real cash flow business" incubated within BitMine.

4. Funding EF Spin-offs: The Ecosystem Role BitMine Wants to Play

Over the past year, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has been streamlining its operations, spinning off some work to three new entities: the non-profit EthLabs, the for-profit EthSystems, and EthInstitutional. BitMine is the primary seed funder for all three.

Lee's explanation is that Ethereum has grown too large for a single organization to handle everything, just as the semiconductor industry doesn't rely solely on one industry association. BitMine, as permanent capital (no maturing debt, no redemption pressure), can provide a runway of 3 years or even longer, allowing these spin-off entities to focus on execution without worrying about fundraising month to month. This is both a public goods contribution and a commercial calculation: BitMine wants Ethereum to capture as much of the future opportunities from tokenization and AI as possible.

5. What Kind of Asset Is ETH Really?

David Hoffman asked Lee during the show: Is ETH a cash flow asset or a store of value? Lee chose the latter but used a different framework.

He argues that simply classifying "the stock market" as a cash flow asset is wrong. Taking the S&P 500 from 2009 to today as an example, total returns have risen about 10x, with dividends contributing only 30% of that; the remaining 9.7x comes from capital appreciation. Investors buy stocks fundamentally because they believe companies can allocate capital better than they could themselves; true pure cash flow assets are bonds. ETH is more like stocks, and also like land: land can be rented to generate cash flow, but long-term appreciation is what truly allows it to transcend cycles.

He also responded to the skepticism that "institutions will use Ethereum for tokenization, but won't need to hold large amounts of ETH." Lee believes this is a common bear-market narrative that will quickly disappear once ETH prices enter a new uptrend. He used the dollar as an analogy: the dollar itself cannot be redeemed for gold from the government, yet it remains the global transaction unit. Trying to explain asset prices with a single economic model often leads to absurd conclusions.

6. Lessons from Saylor and the "Call Option" Logic of BMNP

BitMine is often compared to Michael Saylor's Strategy. Lee observes that Strategy as a common stock story has been quite successful, but Saylor's strategy has become more complex over time, incorporating leveraged structures like digital credit and volatility monetization. Lee believes these innovations need a longer time frame to evaluate properly, "we might not have clarity until 2032."

BitMine has chosen a different capitalization path: locking in dollar costs with 9.5% perpetual preferred stock while retaining the upside potential of common stock. Lee calculated that if ETH rises to $5,000 or $10,000, staking yields would far exceed preferred stock dividends, giving common shareholders significant leverage. He also hinted that only if BitMine decides to buy far more than 5% of ETH would it expand the BMNP size; otherwise, the current issuance is sufficient.

7. Cycles, AI, and ETH Price Targets

Lee believes the crypto market has bottomed. He says it's approximately 95% complete from a time perspective and about 90% complete from a price perspective. "Unless you're a genius, buying here is likely cheaper than waiting for confirmed bottom signals."

He agrees with David's point that "AI is sucking up all the capital from crypto," but adds a key insight: crypto is the downstream story of AI. The more mature AI becomes, the greater the demand for machine-to-machine transactions, on-chain settlements, and tokenized assets, which in turn increases crypto's importance. This year's AI rally has made it hard for other assets to gain attention, but that dynamic is changing.

As for price targets, Lee gives specific numbers:

• Simply due to entering a new crypto bull market cycle, ETH should be above $5,000.
• If Wall Street tokenization and AI-driven demand are layered on top, ETH will "easily" exceed $10,000 within 1-2 years.

He also made a rough shareholder return calculation: if ETH flips Bitcoin, the corresponding ETH price would be around $15,000, and BitMine's stock price could rise 10x from current levels to approximately $180.

8. Conclusion

BitMine has proven over 14 months that an Ethereum treasury strategy can be scaled without debt. For the average investor, the value of this episode isn't in "how BitMine does it," but in Lee providing a framework for evaluating ETH: whether it's a store of value, whether staking yields can cover capital costs, and whether institutional demand for holding the asset will truly materialize by 2027.

It's also worth remembering that Lee is one of the most obvious stakeholders in this game. His company holds nearly 5% of all ETH, and he is deeply tied to its success. The path to $10,000 ETH he describes sounds attractive, but whether that path materializes still depends on the macro cycle, regulatory progress, and whether Ethereum can truly convert the tokenization and AI narratives into on-chain demand.