BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, bought 45,759 ether (ETH) last week worth over $90 million, extending its buying spree despite the sharp pullback in crypto prices.
The fundraise was the largest weekly purchase this year in token terms, bringing the firm’s total ETH holdings to 4,371,497 tokens, the company said in a Tuesday update. This corresponds to 8.7 billion dollars in current prices, while the company is estimated to be sitting on almost 8 billion dollars in paper losses.
The firm also raised its cash pile to $670 million along with its small bitcoin stash and equity stakes, including a $200 million position in Beast Industries. Total assets stand at $9.6 billion, while BitMine’s share of ETH’s total supply rose to 3.62%.
BitMine has now staked over 3 million ETH — about 69% of its holdings — generating $176 million in annual rewards, according to chairman Tom Lee. The firm’s stakes are currently yielding 2.89% on an annualized basis.
Lee said sentiment in crypto markets remains depressed, drawing comparisons to the lows of 2018 and 2022. But he argued that the current environment is different in that there has been no major collapse of major players.
“Investor sentiment and enthusiasm is at rock bottom, reminding us of the abandonment and despondency we saw in November 2022, lows and depths of crypto winter 2018,” he said. “Rather, it appears that crypto has remained weak since the ‘price shock’ and massive deleveraging seen on October 10.”
Lee also highlighted developments from last week’s Consensus Hong Kong conference, citing tokenization, artificial intelligence (AI) integrations and proof-of-humanity infrastructure as long-term growth drivers for Ethereum.
“The price of ETH does not reflect the high utility value of ETH and its role as the future of finance,” Lee said. “That’s why we continue to buy ETH even as crypto moves through this ‘mini-winter’.”
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