Original Title: The World's Largest ETH Holder – Tom Lee on Treasuries, Ethereum Dominance, and Wall Street
Guest: Tom Lee, Chairman of Bitmine Board
Podcast Date: August 6, 2025
Organized & Translated by: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Editor's Note:
Ethereum may be approaching its "sovereign narrative moment".
Bitmine has purchased 830,000 ETH in just one month, directly pointing to 1% of the global total supply. While most institutions are still waiting and watching, it has become the world's largest ETH treasury company, which is not only a bet on asset prices but also a strategic positioning for the future of financial infrastructure.
This interview dialogues with Bitmine Board Chairman Tom Lee, deeply analyzing Bitmine's grand vision and precise execution, discussing Ethereum's key role in financialization, compliant staking, and the AI era. This is not just an insight into digital asset allocation, but also a forward-looking interpretation of a new institutional cycle and financial ecosystem transformation.
The following is the conversation, compiled and translated by ChainCatcher.
Host: Bitmine currently holds 833,000 ETH, nearly 1% of the global ETH total supply, becoming the world's largest publicly listed ETH treasury company. How does that feel?
Tom Lee: Indeed, the pace is fast. From announcing on June 30 to completing on July 8, we quickly acquired a large amount of ETH in 27 days. MicroStrategy has verified the successful path of the treasury strategy, with its stock price soaring from $13 in August 2020 to the current level, achieving 30x growth; BTC rose from $11,000 to $120,000, bringing 20x returns from asset appreciation alone.
I believe Ethereum is a major macro trade for the next decade, and we hope to hold as much as possible when ETH price is around $3,500, to welcome explosive growth similar to Bitcoin's in the past five years.
Host: After Bitmine announced the ETH treasury strategy, other companies like Joe Lubin's SBET and Sharplink Gaming quickly followed, almost simultaneously announcing similar plans. Why did these ETH treasury companies emerge within two weeks?
Tom Lee: Perhaps it's "great minds think alike". Sharpling was the earliest to announce the treasury strategy, publicly revealing the plan in May, and we were slightly later.
There are several reasons why Ethereum is suitable for treasury assets:
First, if you are bullish on ETH's long-term value, the treasury strategy is more attractive than an ETF because you can continuously buy and hold long-term.
Second, Ethereum is based on Proof of Stake (PoS), which can obtain over 3% native yield through staking, essentially providing these companies with a stable income source like infrastructure operators.
Finally, scarcity is key. Bitmine's goal is to hold 5% of ETH total supply. We have a very clean balance sheet, with daily stock trading volume reaching $1.6 billion, ranking 42nd in US stock market liquidity, comparable to Uber. Yet our market value is only $4 billion, far below Uber's $184 billion.
[The translation continues in the same manner for the rest of the text]
Secondly, the "speed premium". We grew from $4 per share of ETH to $23, far exceeding MicroStrategy's growth pace. MicroStrategy accumulates about $0.16 worth of Bitcoin daily, obtaining a 0.6x NAV premium; while we accumulate $0.8-1 daily, which is nearly 12 times faster, and theoretically should have a higher premium.
Moreover, in terms of liquidity. Our stock's daily trading volume reaches $1.6 billion, second only to MicroStrategy, and this high liquidity naturally brings valuation premium.
Host: Can this growth rate be sustained? Where does the liquidity come from?
Tom Lee: High liquidity supports high speed. Our team and investor background are key: Mosaics (macro hedge fund) led the investment, attracting top institutions like Founders Fund and Stan Druckenmiller. Meanwhile, I have publicly supported the crypto industry since 2017, which also enhanced market confidence in our vision.
In 2017, Bitcoin transformed from a retail asset to an institutional asset; in 2025, Ethereum is experiencing a similar moment.
Host: You mentioned Bitcoin's turning point in 2017, how does it compare to the current Ethereum situation?
Tom Lee: In 2017, our research at Fundstrat found that Bitcoin's price rise from $100 to $1000 was mainly driven by wallet numbers and activity, demonstrating a strong network effect. At that time, institutions hardly participated, we were questioned and even lost clients, but ultimately Bitcoin rose to $120,000.
Today's Ethereum is similar: many Wall Street professionals still have doubts, questioning whether it is the "main chain". But the reality is, Ethereum has been zero-downtime for 10 consecutive years, with on-chain activity at historic highs, and Circle's IPO, Coinbase and Robinhood's Layer 2 solutions are all built on Ethereum.
Wall Street is beginning to realize that Ethereum is becoming the core infrastructure for financialization and tokenization.
Host: What's your view on ETH's price this year or this cycle?
Tom Lee: In the short term, ETH should at least return to $4,000 from last December. Calculated at the ETH/BTC ratio of 0.05 at that time, with the current Bitcoin price, ETH should be around $6,000. Considering ongoing treasury company purchases and potential Fed rate cuts, ETH has a chance to reach between $7,000 and $15,000 by year-end.
Long-term, Bitcoin once achieved a hundredfold growth. As a core asset in the financialization and AI era, ETH's future space might be even larger, with a chance to surpass Bitcoin.
Host: How to value ETH? Based on transaction fees, DeFi storage value, or staking demand?
Tom Lee: It's difficult to precisely predict ETH's reasonable price in a spreadsheet, just like you can't accurately predict Bitcoin or S&P 500's long-term trend. Market pricing reflects more expectations for the next 5 to 10 years, rather than current transaction data.
ETH is currently severely undervalued. While comparing Bitcoin to "digital gold" and Ethereum to "digital oil" has reference value, we shouldn't be constrained by these models.
Host: Will ETH treasury companies overheat? Is there a risk of bubble burst like investment trusts in the 1920s or GBTC?
Tom Lee: A bubble requires market consensus on being bullish, but currently for both ETH and Bitcoin, mainstream sentiment remains cautious and even pessimistic. Treasury companies won't bring systemic risks as long as they don't abuse leverage, especially adopting compliant debt structures like MicroStrategy.
At the current stage, the market is more like "over-suspicious" rather than "over-optimistic", which is precisely the soil for price increases.
Host: What are you concerned about in the macroeconomic aspect?
Tom Lee: I'm concerned about institutional politicization, especially the independence of the Federal Reserve and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) being questioned. However, the overall economy is actually strong, despite many institutional clients mistakenly believing we're in a recession.
In the past 30 years, no one could accurately predict a recession. Now companies are generally cautious, the ISM index has been below 50 for 29 consecutive months, similar to a "tariff impact" resetting market confidence, which helps suppress overheating. I believe we're still in the mid-stage of the economic cycle, or even early.
Host: What's Wall Street's biggest misunderstanding about Ethereum?
Tom Lee: They rely too much on spreadsheets, focusing on Gas fees, stablecoin transaction volumes and such details, resulting in "analysis paralysis".
The real issue isn't what the model says, but the lack of strategic perspective. Ethereum's value as a compliant blockchain is becoming increasingly important, like the once-underestimated S&P 500. It will become the infrastructure of the financialization and AI era, and the current market price is far below its true potential.
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