Bitmine, the largest Ethereum-centric treasury firm, purchased 27,562 ether last week valued at approximately $75.2 million at Monday's price of $2,727. The acquisition continues the company's consistent buying pattern since pivoting to a crypto treasury strategy in June 2025.
The purchase lifted Bitmine's total holdings to 5,983,940 ETH, representing approximately 4.9% of the token's 122.1 million supply. The company has maintained weekly purchases in recent weeks and could reach its target of 5% ownership within the next couple of months at its current pace.
Bitmine has staked roughly 5 million ETH, or 85% of its holdings, and projects annual staking revenue of approximately $357 million at current yields.
Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine and cofounder of Fundstrat, argued that institutional investors remain underexposed to cryptocurrency. Since the end of June, ether has gained 76%, substantially outperforming the S&P 500's 2% gain. Lee attributed institutional underweighting in crypto this year partly to the stronger performance of artificial intelligence-related stocks in early 2026.
"Given institutions have underweighted crypto in 2026, partially due to the outperformance of AI stocks in early 2026, we expect institutions to substantially increase their exposure in the final three months of 2026," Lee said.
Lee also cited tokenization and growing blockchain applications in artificial intelligence as longer-term factors that could drive increased institutional participation.
Bitmine shares rose 5.8% in pre-market trading, extending Friday's 8% rally as ether surged overnight to its highest level since late January.
