EthereumMarkets
|6 min ReadTom Lee Bets On Ethereum Supercycle As BitMine Buys
Tariq Al-Saidi
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
BitMine Immersion Technologies just bought a mountain of Ether while most traders are still staring at the red candles. The publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm added 54,156 ETH to its balance sheet in a single week, roughly $170 million worth, according to a press release from the firm. It is a bold move in a shaky market, and it fits perfectly with Chairman Tom Lee’s message: the cycle is not done, and Ethereum still has room for a tremendous run.
BitMine now sits on 3,559,879 ETH, valued at more than 61 billion Bitcoin stash. On top of that Ether hoard, BitMine also holds 192 Bitcoin, about 607 million in cash.
BitMine Buys The Dip While ETH Stumbles
The timing of BitMine’s purchase is not an accident. Ethereum has dropped more than 11 percent over the last week and now trades about 35 percent below its August all-time high. Many traders are nervous. BitMine is not. Just like Strategy did with Bitcoin, BitMine is treating Ether like a strategic reserve, buying regardless of short-term price action.
The market, meanwhile, is split. On prediction platform Myriad, traders are debating Ethereum's next move. The odds recently showed a nearly 51 percent chance that ETH falls to 4,000. Those probabilities have flipped several times in the last 24 hours as the price moves. Myriad is a product of Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan, so the flow there is watched closely.
While this battle plays out, BitMine keeps absorbing supply. The firm now controls nearly 3 percent of the entire circulating ETH supply. In a market where everybody talks about supply shocks, that kind of accumulation is not a small detail. It is a structural position.
Tom Lee Sells The Ethereum Supercycle Story
Tom Lee is not just buying tokens. He is selling a narrative. In an X post, he laid out why he still sees a long way to go for crypto, and why he believes Ethereum can follow a path similar to Bitcoin’s historic run.
Bitcoin is a volatile asset. We first recommended Bitcoin to Fundstrat clients in 2017 with a 1% to 2% allocation when Bitcoin was around BTC](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24BTC&src=ctag&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) has seen six declines greater than 50 percent and three declines greater than 75 percent. Yet Bitcoin still delivered a 100x return from that first recommendation. To have those returns, you must be willing to live through that kind of drawdown. pic.twitter.com/xtIRGLdnWM
Lee argues that the same kind of patience may now be required for Ethereum. He calls this a potential “supercycle” for the asset and says prices have not yet peaked in this cycle. He even floated the idea that Ethereum could see a 100x rise in the long run, echoing Bitcoin’s performance since Fundstrat first told clients to hold it.
Behind the big quote is a simple message. Volatility is the price of admission. Huge drawdowns, multiple times, and then a massive long-term payoff. Lee is asking investors to look at Ether through that same lens, not through the last week’s chart.
Market Still Nursing Wounds From October Crash
Lee also points to the October wipeout as a key reason the market still feels heavy. That record-breaking crypto liquidation event erased more than $19 billion in positions in a single day. According to him, the damage did not stop with the forced sellers.
He suggests that at least one major market maker may have been badly hit during that crash. When a market maker has what he calls a “hole” on its balance sheet, it starts raising capital and pulls back from providing liquidity. Order books thin out. Trading gets choppier. Prices struggle. In Lee’s words, this is the crypto version of quantitative tightening, or QT.
He notes that during 2022, a similar QT effect lasted roughly six to eight weeks. He believes something like that is happening again now, with liquidity being quietly drained even after the headlines moved on. In that kind of environment, aggressive buyers like BitMine stand out.
Strategy’s Bitcoin Push And BitMine’s Stock Slide
While BitMine goes all-in on Ether, Strategy continues to double down on Bitcoin. The company just announced its largest Bitcoin purchase in more than four months, spending 61 billion. Bitcoin recently traded near $94,000, down about 11 percent over the past week, according to data from crypto provider CoinGecko.
Lee himself has stayed upbeat on year-end price targets. Earlier this month, he suggested that Bitcoin could climb to a range of 200,000 before the year is over, with Ethereum potentially rising to $7,000. It is an aggressive view, but it matches the positioning he is now taking through BitMine.
Inside BitMine, Lee serves as chairman and the loudest public voice, even as the firm brought in a new CEO recently. The market, however, is not rewarding the stock today. Shares of BMNR fell nearly 6 percent after the opening bell on Monday, trading around $32.37.
BMNR is now down 35 percent over the last month. That is worse than both of its core assets. Ethereum is down about 19 percent over the same period. Bitcoin is off roughly 12 percent. In other words, BitMine’s balance sheet looks tremendous on paper, but equity holders are still feeling the full weight of this choppy, unforgiving crypto market.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.