Tom Lee's Bitmine buys 12,532 more ether, leaving it about 76,000 short of its 5% cap, and he says the 'largest ever' crypto bull market could be next

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, which calls itself the largest ether treasury company, bought another 12,532 ether in the past week. The company said on Monday, October 12, that it held 6,028,946 ether as of October 11.

By the company's count that is 4.9% of the 122.1 million ether in existence, worth about $15.3 billion at the $2,544 price it used. Bitmine says it is 99% of the way to a 5% share. Chairman Tom Lee said last week that the company will stop buying at that point, as Cryptoweek reported on October 8. On the company's supply figure, it is about 76,000 ether short.

Most of the ether is staked to earn rewards. Bitmine said 5,067,309 coins, about 84% of the total, are staked, which it estimates brings in $336 million a year at a current yield of 2.61%, rising to about $400 million if all of it were staked.

Lee paired the numbers with a bold call. He said the company sees "the potential for this to be the largest ever crypto bull market," pointing to tokenization, a transfer of wealth, treasury companies absorbing supply and crypto's links to artificial intelligence.

That is a prediction from a company whose fortunes depend on the price of ether, and by Bitmine's own figures ether fell 10% in the first nine months of 2026. Including cash and other investments, the company put its total holdings at $16.2 billion. Its shares closed at $24.03 on Friday, according to The Block.