The Zhitong Finance App learned that Bitmine (BMNR.US), headed by “Wall Street magic operator” Tom Lee, is trying to gamble “Ethereum's ChatGPT moment” in the capital market. However, in the most recent fiscal year, the company recorded losses of over $6 billion, almost entirely due to book depreciation of its Ethereum holdings. Despite this, the company chose to continue to increase its holdings.
Bitmine disclosed in its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the net loss for the fiscal year ending August 31 reached US$6.31 billion, equivalent to a loss of US$13.11 per share. In comparison, the company made a profit of US$348.6 million in the previous fiscal year.
The company did not sell its Ethereum holdings at a loss. Of the total loss of US$6.31 billion, approximately US$6.23 billion was an unrealized loss due to Bitmine's lower position valuation due to declining currency prices. In the previous fiscal year, the same project recorded revenue of US$805 million.
Financial reports show that thanks to the pledge and verification business, the company's revenue jumped from $6.1 million in the previous fiscal year to US$124.8 million. Among them, the pledge and verification business contributed US$121.4 million, accounting for about 97% of total revenue. However, the pressure on the cost side was more pronounced: general and administrative expenses amounted to US$376.9 million, which is about three times the revenue.
According to Koyfin data, analysts' previous average estimated revenue was 77.45 million US dollars, with earnings per share of 0.13 US dollars.
As of press time, Bitmine was up 0.9% in the premarket. On the Stocktwits platform, retail sentiment about Bitmine remained in a “bullish” range over the past day, and discussions were at a high level.
Ethereum price retracement drags down performance
According to the documents, as of the end of August, Bitmine held 5.9 million Ethereum worth about 14.6 billion US dollars, accounting for about 4.9% of the circulating supply of Ethereum. In the same period, the company also held 211 bitcoins worth $16.6 million. The cumulative decline in the price of Ethereum was around 44% during the fiscal year.
The company revealed that the Ethereum price range for this period was between $1506 and $4763. Since Bitmine measures its crypto assets at fair value, currency price fluctuations are directly reflected in performance. “Changes in the price of Ethereum are expected to continue to cause significant fluctuations in our reported results,” the company warned.
How Bitmine buys Ethereum
The company mainly raised funds to buy Ethereum by selling its own shares. The company sold 395.1 million shares at market price and raised a total of US$13.2 billion. Its tradable share capital then surged from 232.4 million shares in the previous fiscal year to 613.3 million shares.
However, the company has also initiated share buybacks. According to the documents, the company repurchased approximately 20.8 million shares at an average price of $17 per share in July and August. Of the total repurchase plan of 4 billion US dollars, the company still has about 3.6 billion US dollars of credit available.
Lee continues to increase his Ethereum holdings
Despite the losses, Lee's purchase of Ethereum did not slow down. On Monday, Bitmine announced the purchase of 9,587 Ethereum. Lee said the company has been buying Ethereum every week since opening positions in mid-2025. The company plans to continue to increase its Ethereum holdings over time, but there is no mandatory obligation to continue buying.
Looking back at July 2025, Lee made a high-profile announcement about this “big gamble” — Bitmine completed the PIPE transaction at about $4.50 per share and raised $250 million, mainly to buy Ethereum. At the time, he called the stablecoin explosion “the ChatGPT moment for cryptocurrencies” and called Ethereum “the next trillion dollar opportunity.” Today's book losses of over $6 billion indicate that this “moment” is clearly not yet here.