A second major corporate player in the cryptocurrency market is emulating the accumulation strategy of its predecessor. Bitmine Immersion Technologies, chaired by Fundstrat's Tom Lee, has acquired 101,901 ether, valued at approximately $234 million, in its largest weekly purchase this year. This move brings Bitmine's buying pace closer to that of Strategy, a digital treasury company led by Michael Saylor, which regularly buys bitcoin.
Notably, Strategy's purchases, excluding large buys fueled by at-the-market sales of its perpetual preferred stock, typically range from $200 million to $300 million per week. Bitmine's purchase marks the culmination of a four-month streak of escalating buys, which began at around $76 million per week in early January, and has resulted in the company holding over 5 million tokens, roughly 4.21% of the circulating supply of the second-largest cryptocurrency. This development is significant as Bitmine is now the only major corporate crypto buyer keeping pace with Strategy.
Most digital asset treasury companies have paused or slowed their accumulation since the February price drop, but Bitmine has continued to buy, with Lee attributing the buying pace to the late stages of a 'mini-crypto winter' and the formation of a bottom in equity markets. The firm has staked approximately 73% of its tokens, generating around $264 million in annualized revenue from yield, with total crypto and cash holdings standing at $13.3 billion as of early April.
Both firms employ a similar strategy of using capital markets activity to purchase crypto assets. Despite facing pressure in February and early March, when it was sitting on nearly $8 billion in unrealized losses, Bitmine continued to buy, and two months later, ether has risen 22% from its February lows, with Bitmine's accumulation pace not only holding but accelerating. While Strategy's April 21 purchase of $2.54 billion remains the largest single corporate crypto buy of the year, Bitmine's $234 million purchase last week marks the first time the structural baselines of the two firms have come close to each other. If this pattern continues, ether may soon have a corporate buyer absorbing supply each week, regardless of price, similar to Strategy's role in the bitcoin market.