Bitmine (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, continued its ether (ETH) purchases last week as chairman Tom Lee pointed to ether (ETH) outperforming bitcoin as evidence that the crypto market is regaining momentum.
The company bought 9,946 ETH, worth about $19.4 million at current prices, up from 7,430 ETH the previous week, according to a Monday update. The purchase lifted Bitmine’s holdings to 5,787,414 ETH ($11.2 billion), or about 4.8% of ether’s circulating supply.
Lee said Bitmine also increased its share buybacks, buying back 6.1 million shares compared with 5.5 million a week earlier, under its $4 billion buyback authorization.
The latest purchase remains well below the company’s buying pace earlier this year, when Bitmine routinely acquired tens of thousands of ETH each week. Still, the company has continued to add to its treasury every week since launching the strategy in June 2025 and now owns about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply, putting it within reach of its long-term goal of accumulating 5%.
Ether relative strength
The company’s upbeat outlook stems in part from the recent strength of ETH against BTC, a metric traders often use to gauge risk appetite in crypto markets.
