Tom Lee's Bitmine Keeps Buying Ethereum But Pivots to Record Share Buybacks

In brief Bitmine added 10,452 ETH to reach 6,051,933 ETH, extending its weekly buying streak and nearing its 5% “Alchemy of 5%” goal. The week’s bigger move was a share buyback: Bitmine repurchased 2.04 million shares, lifting its 2026 total to 22.9 million shares for ~$399.6 million, which chairman Tom Lee called the largest ever by a crypto treasury firm. It mirrors Strategy, which paused Bitcoin buying this week to spend $204.9 million on STRC buybacks—both giants favoring their shares over fresh crypto. Bitmine Immersion Technologies kept its weekly Ethereum buying streak intact, adding 10,452 ETH worth roughly $24 million, but the bigger move this week was a turn toward buying back its own stock, which the company says is now the largest equity repurchase program any crypto treasury firm has run.The NYSE-listed firm said Monday it repurchased 2.04 million of its own shares over the past week at an average price of $22.48, bringing its 2026 total to 22.9 million shares bought back for about $399.6 million.Myriad: Where does ETH go next? Click to make your prediction.Chairman Tom Lee framed the buybacks as a value play, saying the company intends to repurchase stock “accretively” when management views the shares as undervalued.The ETH purchase lifts Bitmine’s holdings to 6,051,933 ETH, worth roughly $14.3 billion at a reference price of $2,356 per coin. That’s 4.95% of Ethereum’s 122.2 million token supply, leaving the firm, by its own count, 99% of the way to its goal of owning 5% of the network, a target it brands the “Alchemy of 5%.”Lee has said Bitmine is nearly finished stacking and will stop buying once it hits that threshold. (Disclosure: Tom Lee is one of several investors in Dastan, Decrypt’s parent company.)Lee again cast recent crypto weakness as a buying opportunity rather than a warning sign, arguing the pullback stemmed from the same risk-off forces behind a broader AI selloff. He noted ETH had fallen 13% from its recent peak while U.S. semiconductor stocks dropped 20% over the same stretch, which he said was further evidence “a crypto bull market is underway.”Counting cash, other tokens and what it calls “moonshot” investments, Bitmine’s total holdings stood at $15 billion as of Oct. 25, including 215 Bitcoin, $514 million in cash and marketable securities, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries and a $76 million position in Eightco Holdings.Bitmine remains the world’s largest Ethereum treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury overall, trailing only Michael Saylor’s Strategy.Strategy leaned the same way this week, pausing its Bitcoin buying for the first time since mid-September to spend $204.9 million buying back its STRC preferred stock, underscoring how both treasury giants pivoted toward shoring up their shares over fresh crypto purchases.Bitmine has 5,227,037 ETH, about 86% of its holdings, staked through its MAVAN platform, with projected annualized staking revenue of roughly $318 million.Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more. Join 72,000+ readersCreate an account to save your articles.