Bitmine continues its Ethereum buying spree as President Tom Lee warns that crypto markets are still struggling with low liquidity from market makers.
Summary
- Bitmine’s latest purchase of ETH reinforces its drive to create one of the largest enterprise crypto treasuries.
- The company continues to purchase through OTC desks during market volatility, relying on equity raises and staking rewards.
- Tom Lee says the market drop is linked to damaged balance sheets of market makers after the October sell-off shock.
Bitmine purchased an additional 17,242 ETH, worth approximately $49 million, according to data shared by analytics firm Onchain Lens on November 21.
The company now holds approximately 3.5 million Ethereum (ETH) valued at over $10 billion. Its regular purchases have continued even as the crypto market is under significant pressure.
Bitmine Continues Aggressive ETH Accumulation
Bitmine was originally a mining company but transformed into a digital asset treasury business. It plans to build a long-term reserve of Ethereum and ultimately hold approximately 5% of the asset’s circulating supply.
The Company funds these purchases through equity raises, cash reserves and staking rewards. Most purchases are executed through large over-the-counter desks such as FalconX and BitGo.
The company treated recent price drops as buying opportunities. ETH fell sharply from early October highs above $4,000 to levels below $3,000 in mid-November. Despite this crisis, Bitmine has continued to accumulate on a large scale and is now second only to Strategy in total crypto holdings.
Tom Lee says market makers are still repairing balance sheets
In a November 20 interview with CNBC, Tom Lee, president of Bitmine and co-founder of Fundstrat, noted that crypto’s recent weakness is linked to liquidity tensions among major market makers. He said businesses were hit hard by the Oct. 10 crash, which wiped out about $20 billion in forced liquidations.
Lee said market makers were scaling back because they “had a hole in their balance sheet” and needed to free up capital. He added that some companies have “further reduced their balance sheets” to recover from last month’s liquidation.
According to Lee, this has led to a slow and steady decline in prices as these companies shed risks. He said the current period reflects a similar event in 2022, which took about eight weeks to stabilize.
The market is now six weeks into the process and Lee estimates it “could take a few more weeks” before the pressure begins to ease. He noted that Bitcoin and Ethereum were early indicators of this liquidity crisis and expects conditions to improve once market makers resume normal operations.
Bitmine has remained committed to its long-term Ethereum strategy. The company views this asset as a critical component of decentralized finance, smart contracts, and tokenization. His steady buying suggests strong conviction even as the market waits for liquidity to normalize.
