Tom Lee’s BitMine faces about $7.3 billion in paper losses on its Ethereum treasury as Ether (ETH) traders weigh worsening sentiment, ETF outflows and a bearish chart setup pointing toward $1,600.
Key takeaways:
- Bitmine keeps buying ETH even as its losses mount amid the 57% price drawdown from the August 2025 high.
- ETH price technicals warn of a 25% drop, which would push Bitmine’s losses over $10 billion.
Bitmine’s ETH treasury dashboard. Source: DropStab.COM
Lee continues buying ETH despite mounting losses
Ether has fallen more than 57% from its October 2025 peak near $4,955 on Coinbase, with the sell-off also eroding Ethereum’s market share. ETH’s dominance (ETH.D) has dropped to about 10%, down from roughly 15% in August 2025.
ETH.D vs. ETH/USD daily performance chart. Source: TradingView
BitMine began building its Ethereum treasury in July 2025, days after closing a $250 million private placement to fund the strategy. By July 14, the company disclosed holdings of 163,142 ETH, worth about $500 million at the time.
As of last week, BitMine held 5.28 million ETH, or about 4.37% of Ethereum’s total supply, making it the world’s largest publicly traded Ether treasury company. That means Tom Lee’s firm kept accumulating ETH through the drawdown, even as its losses widened.
Lee has not treated the losses as a reason to retreat. In February, he argued that ETH’s steep drawdown may offer another buying opportunity, citing Ethereum’s history of V-shaped recoveries after 50%-plus declines.
Related: Ether pullback was ‘attractive opportunity’ for 71,672 ETH buy: Bitmine’s Lee
In May, BitMine said it would moderate the pace of its ETH purchases, but not abandon the strategy.
The company still expects to reach its goal of owning 5% of Ethereum’s total supply by December, signaling that Lee’s strategy remains focused on long-term accumulation despite widening paper losses.
Bitmine’s losses may swell to over $10 billion if ETH falls further
BitMine could see its Ethereum paper losses swell to over $10 billion if ETH’s prevailing bearish setup plays out as intended.
As of Sunday, ETH was hovering near the lower trend line of its prevailing rising wedge, a bearish reversal pattern that often signals fading buyer momentum.
ETH/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView
A confirmed breakdown below that support could trigger a measured move toward the $1,600 area, down about 25% from current prices, by July or August. The target comes from subtracting the wedge’s maximum height from the breakdown point.
Conversely, a decisive rebound from the lower boundary may increase the odds of a 19%–20% rise toward $2,530, aligning with the wedge’s upper boundary and the 200-day exponential moving average (200-day EMA, blue line).
The breakdown scenario would raise BitMine’s unrealized losses to nearly $10.1 billion, based on its reported 5.28 million ETH holdings and average purchase price of $3,513.
Ethereum traders flip bearish
Ether’s bearish technical setup overlaps with several other headwinds, such as recent Ethereum Foundation departures, persistent ETH ETF outflows, and weakening social media sentiment.
ETH sentiment deteriorated sharply in May, with the bullish-to-bearish comment ratio falling from above 2:1 in late April to nearly 1:1, according to on-chain data platform Santiment.
Ethereum social media sentiment. Source: Santiment
“Historically, this kind of deterioration tends to happen when traders lose confidence in an asset’s short-term direction,” it said in a Friday report, adding:
“Crypto traders tend to become highly emotional during periods of underperformance, and ETH has increasingly become viewed as ‘dead money’ compared to assets that have shown much stronger momentum in 2026.”
