Bitmine (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, continued its ether ($ETH) purchases last week as Chairman Tom Lee pointed to ether ($ETH) outperforming bitcoin $BTC$65,052.41 as evidence 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 repurchases, 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. Even so, the company has continued adding to its treasury every week since launching the strategy in June 2025 and now owns roughly 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 optimistic outlook stems in part from the recent strength of $ETH relative to $BTC, a metric traders often use to gauge risk appetite within crypto markets.
