Tom Lee's BitMine Hits 7-Month Stock Low as Ethereum Paper Losses Reach $8 Billion

Shares in publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) have fallen 11% on Thursday to trade at a seven-month low price as unrealized losses from its ETH holdings purchases hit approximately $8 billion. 

BMNR recently changed hands around $18.05, its lowest mark since its July ascent amid news the company was shifting its focus to accumulating ETH. At that time, trading of BMNR shares was halted multiple times due to volatility, ultimately ending the day with more than a 400% gain and peaking at $161.00 per share.

When poked on X about the mounting unrealized losses earlier this week, BitMine chairman and Fundstart co-founder Tom Lee said that “crypto is in a downturn, so naturally ETH is down.”

“BMNR will see ‘unrealized’ losses on our holdings of ETH during these times,” he posted. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Shall we call out all index ETFs for their losses?”

“Bottom line: Ethereum is the future of finance,” he added.

The firm, which maintains a treasury of 4,285,125 ETH or $8.4 billion worth, was down more than $6 billion on its holdings earlier this week as ETH had fallen to $2,300. 

Now with Ethereum falling another 10% in the last 24 hours to a recent price of $1,932, down nearly 32% in the last seven days, Bitmine’s have extended to around $8 billion.

Though the firm doesn’t report its unrealized losses in real time, the tally based on the firm’s cost basis reporting from a late November 10-Q filing, plus estimates from its reported purchases since that time. Data from analytics platform DropsTab notes that the firm is down nearly 49% on its overall investment, notching unrealized losses of $8.02 billion in total.

Despite the losses, Lee and BitMine remain convicted in Ethereum’s future, telling investors earlier this week that the firm saw the ETH dip as “attractive, given the strengthening fundamentals.” 

BitMine most recently accumulated 41,788 ETH—currently about $82 million worth—last week, as it announced this past Monday. In total, the firm holds more than 3.5% of the circulating Ethereum supply. It ultimately aims to hold 5% of the circulating supply, a goal shared by fellow Ethereum treasury firm, SharpLink Gaming. 

At its recent price of $1,921, Ethereum was trading more than 61% off its August all-time high of $4,946, according to data from CoinGecko.

Users on Myriad—a prediction market operated by Decrypt‘s parent company, Dastan—foresee further losses ahead for ETH, currently penciling in a nearly 72% chance that Ethereum falls to $1,500 sooner than it can rebound to $3,000.