Bitmine Holds 5.28M ETH as Tom Lee Cites Oil Correlation and Buterin's 'ETH Is Money' Remark
Bitmine Immersion Technologies reported holdings of roughly 5.28 million ETH, about 4.37% of circulating supply, in the period covered by its most recent press release. Chairman Tom Lee linked Ethereum's recent weakness to rising oil prices while citing Vitalik Buterin's comments that ETH is money.
Written by CoinArticle’s AI Newsroom · from 2 cited sources. How we work
Bitmine's Reported Holdings Differ Across Sources
Bitmine's Ethereum position is reported at two different levels, and the figures do not match. CryptoPotato, citing the company's press release dated May 17, put holdings at 5.28 million ETH, or about 4.37% of a 120.7 million ETH circulating supply. Decrypt, citing a release from Monday, Nov. 8, put holdings at 6,070,092 ETH, or 4.97% of a 122.2 million token supply. The two reports describe different dates and different supply denominators, so the figures cannot be reconciled from the reporting alone. Neither outlet explains the gap, and readers should treat the two numbers as separate snapshots rather than a single trend line.
Both reports agree on the strategy's core shape: Bitmine has bought Ethereum on a weekly basis, has staked most of its ETH through its MAVAN platform, and describes its goal as owning 5% of the network's supply. CryptoPotato said the company was 87% of the way to that target, while Decrypt said it was 99% of the way. Those percentages are consistent with the differing supply figures and dates, but again the sources do not reconcile them.
Staking and Treasury Composition
CryptoPotato reported that nearly 89% of the treasury was staked, with 4,712,917 ETH under staking and annualized staking revenue of about $289 million, citing a 7-day staking yield of 2.80%. Decrypt reported that about 86% of holdings, or 5,227,037 ETH, were staked through MAVAN, with projected annualized staking revenue of about $359 million. As with the holdings figures, the staking ratios and revenue projections differ, most likely because they reflect different reporting dates.
Both outlets also described a broader treasury that includes Bitcoin, cash and securities, and minority stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings, which Bitmine describes as indirect exposure to OpenAI. The Bitcoin and cash balances differ between the two reports, with CryptoPotato listing 202 BTC and $685 million in cash, and Decrypt listing 216 BTC and $475 million in cash and marketable securities. Total treasury value was reported as $12.6 billion in one case and $14.3 billion in the other, again tied to different dates.
Lee Links Ether's Slump to Oil
CryptoPotato reported that ETH briefly fell to $2,097 on a Monday, its lowest level since April 7, and was trading near $2,132 at press time. Lee attributed part of the weakness to rising oil prices, writing on X that ETH's inverse correlation with oil is at its highest level ever and that ETH has declined over the past six weeks as oil climbed. He suggested a reversal in oil could support a short-term ETH recovery. This is the chairman's own analysis, and the reporting does not include independent data testing the correlation.
Buterin's Remarks and the Chairman's Framing
Decrypt reported that Lee pointed to comments by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin at the Devcon conference in Mumbai, where Buterin said, "I've finally made up my mind, ETH is a store of value, ETH is money." Lee called the statement a seismic shift and argued that ETH functions as collateral rather than a cash-flow asset. Buterin later expanded on the view in an X post, arguing that fee burning is weaker than it once seemed and that optimizing for it can conflict with decentralization. Decrypt also disclosed that Lee is one of several investors in Dastan, its parent company.
CryptoPotato framed Lee's broader thesis as resting on tokenization growth and demand from agentic AI systems, and described the recent pullback as an attractive opportunity in his view. Those are the chairman's stated positions and are not independently verified in either report.
Why It Matters
For Traders
Bitmine's weekly buying and high staking ratio are relevant to ETH supply dynamics, but the two sources report conflicting holdings and dates, so verify against the company's own filings before drawing conclusions.
For Investors
The debate over whether ETH is primarily a store of value or a cash-flow asset, as framed by Buterin and Lee, bears on how institutional treasuries value the network over multi-month horizons.
For Builders
Heavy staking through a single institutional platform concentrates validator activity, so protocol and staking-infrastructure teams may want to monitor how MAVAN's share of stake evolves.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.
