Tom Lee says ether is 'best performing macro asset' as Bitmine adds 53,501 ETH

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) announced on Monday that it has increased its ether treasury to 5,901,112 ETH after acquiring 53,501 tokens over the past week.

At $2,511 per ETH, the holdings are worth about $14.8 billion. Bitmine now holds 4.9% of Ethereum’s 120.7 million token supply (ETH), making it the world's largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency, the company said in a statement. 

Of the total tokens held, 5,067,309 ETH, valued at $12.7 billion, are staked via the company's MAVAN platform and staking partners, representing 86% of its balance. Bitmine projected annualized staking revenues of $335 million based on a 7-day annualized yield of 2.63%.

Beyond ether, Bitmine reported 211 bitcoin, an $180 million stake in Beast Industries, an $81 million stake in Eightco Holdings, and total cash and marketable securities of $541 million. Combined crypto, cash, and other assets totaled $15.6 billion as of Aug. 30.

Chairman Tom Lee reiterated the company's conviction in ether, saying the asset outperformed the S&P 500 by 5,430 basis points in the third quarter through Aug. 28.

"The top 3 performing assets since June 30th are ETH, BTC and SOL," Lee said in the statement. "We believe this sets the stage for institutions to add to their crypto holdings given the substantial outperformance of crypto versus other macro assets in 3Q so far."

According to The Block's ETH price page, ether remained relatively flat on Monday, trading above $2,400.

Bitmine shares closed down 7.14% at $23.80 on Friday, according to The Block's BMNR price page. The stock recovered slightly to trade above $24 Monday morning.