BitMine bags $98M in ETH as year-end selling caps gains: Tom Lee

Ethereum treasury company BitMine Immersion Technologies scooped up $97.6 million worth of Ether on Tuesday as the crypto market remains muted in the final days of 2025.

Nansen data shows BitMine purchased 32,938 Ether. Other data shows its total holdings are now 4.07 million ETH, worth $12 billion.

BitMine also staked another 118,944 ETH, continuing its strategy to earn passive returns for shareholders.

BitMine’s latest buying spree comes amid a broader crypto market compression, which Tom Lee,  the orchestrator of BitMine’s Ethereum strategy, said was partly due to an uptick in tax-loss selling in the US:

"Year-end tax-loss related selling is pushing down crypto and crypto equity prices and this effect tends to be the greatest from 12/26 to 12/30, so we are navigating markets with this in mind.”

More tax-loss selling typically happens toward the end of December as individuals and institutions offload assets to offset profits and lower their taxable income for the year.

Lee, a founder and managing partner of Fundstrat, said crypto prices have also been affected by institutional investors taking a break during the Christmas period, as it leaves bots to dominate trading activity.

The selling pressure has stalled upward price movement, with the crypto total market cap having now hovered around the $3 trillion mark for the past two weeks, CoinGecko data shows.

Change in crypto market cap over the past fortnight. Source: CoinGecko

BitMine’s ETH buying activity hasn’t slowed

Despite the market slump, BitMine has accumulated more than 77,400 ETH since last Monday, widening its lead over competitors and becoming what Lee calls the largest “fresh money” buyer of ETH.

BitMine has now purchased more than 40,000 ETH each week for at least 10 consecutive weeks.

Digital asset treasuries by value of crypto holdings. Source: BitMine

Proposed California wealth tax stirs controversy

It comes as several crypto leaders slammed a proposed 5% wealth tax on billionaires earlier this week, with opponents arguing it could trigger an exodus of entrepreneurs and capital out of the tech-savvy state.

“I promise you this will be the final straw. Billionaires will take with them all of their spending, hobbies, philanthropy and jobs,” former Kraken CEO Jesse Powell said.

The proposal includes taxes on unrealized gains.