Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE:BMNR) added 9,587 Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) last week, with Chairman Tom Lee calling Vitalik Buterin’s latest comments a "seismic shift" for the network.
Why Lee Points to Buterin’s Comments as a Turning Point
Buterin told attendees at Devcon 8 in Mumbai, "I’ve finally made up my mind, ETH is a store of value, ETH is money," a declaration Lee says clarifies how the token will capture value through the coming tokenization and AI supercycle.
Lee argued Ethereum was never meant to work like a cashflow token, the way HYPE or LIT do.
Instead, he sees it as trusted collateral, the base layer most financial institutions have already chosen for moving assets on-chain.
Buterin later expanded on his thinking, citing three reasons ETH’s identity centers on being a store of value: fee-burning hasn’t proven as powerful a value driver as expected, optimizing for fee-burning conflicts with decentralization and capture resistance, and optimizing for store-of-value status aligns better with Ethereum’s core strengths.
Bitmine’s Treasury Keeps Growing Toward Its 5% Target
Bitmine’s crypto holdings, cash, and "moonshot" investments now total $14.3 billion.
As of Nov. 8, the company held 6,070,092 ETH, equal to 4.97% of Ethereum’s total supply, putting Bitmine 99% of the way to its stated goal of acquiring 5% of the network in just 15 months.
The company has bought ETH every single week since launching its treasury strategy in June 2025:
- Total ETH staked: 5,227,037, worth roughly $11.7 billion, through its MAVAN platform
- Projected annualized staking rewards: $359 million once fully staked, up from $309 million currently
- Other holdings: 216 Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), a $180 million stake in Beast Industries, and a $75 million stake in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ:ORBS), which gives investors indirect exposure to OpenAI
Bitmine remains the world’s largest Ethereum treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury overall, trailing only Strategy’s (NASDAQ:MSTR) roughly $69 billion Bitcoin position.
Trader notes: BMNR fell more than 4% in premarket trading, approaching historical support near $17.80. The stock trades below its broken rising trendline and all four major EMAs, keeping the technical outlook bearish.
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