Most crypto buyers went quiet after last fall's crash. Bitmine did the opposite, and just bought another $92 million of Ethereum.
Bitmine picked up 52,203 ether last week. That pushed its total to 5.67 million ETH.
Ether traded near $1,760 at the time. The stash is now worth close to $10 billion.
It was a smaller buy than the weeks before. But it keeps the firm on track to own 5% of all Ethereum.
Bitmine is now 94% of the way to that goal. At 4.7% of supply, it is closing in fast.
It is also one of the few big crypto buyers left. Most others have pulled back since the crash.
Ether makes up almost all of its crypto pile. The firm owns just a sliver of anything else.
Tom Lee, the chairman, said the plan is a "steady pace" of buying all year. He has made bold calls before, and this is another one.
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Buying billions in crypto takes funding. Bitmine gets it from a special kind of stock.
The firm raised about $274 million by selling preferred shares. Those shares pay a cash dividend every week.
Preferred shares work like a loan that pays steady income. They sit between a normal stock and a bond.
The shares trade under the ticker BMNP. Bitmine has set dividend payments that run through August, at about 18 cents each.
To cover those payouts, Bitmine leans on staking. Staking means locking up coins to help run the network.
In return, the network pays rewards. Bitmine has 83% of its Ethereum staked.
It expects that to bring in about $223 million a year. The total could reach $268 million through its own staking platform.
The firm also holds about $601 million in cash and other assets. That gives it room to keep buying.
The weekly dividend is a draw for income investors. It is rare for a crypto firm to pay one.
Lee thinks the worst is over. He calls this the early stage of a slow thaw.
The deep freeze began back in October 2025. His timing has not been perfect.
He said the bear market would end if Bitcoin closed May above $76,000. Instead, it ended the month under $74,000.
Then it briefly fell below $60,000 in early June. He is still buying anyway.
The dip has not shaken his plan. He still expects a slow climb back.
Lee's bigger bet rests on two forces: tokenization and AI. Tokenization means putting real assets, like stocks, onto a blockchain.
He says both trends will pull more people onto Ethereum. Owning 5% would make Bitmine a giant holder of the coin.
For now, it sits one big buy from a twentieth of all Ethereum. Its stack has grown fast through 2026.
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