Tom Lee’s BitMine Buys $119M More Ethereum, Taking ETH Holdings Past 3% Of Supply

Tom Lee’s BitMine Immersion Technologies bought more Ethereum (ETH), pushing its holdings past 3% of the altcoin’s supply. 

According to the on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, the largest ETH treasury firm globally acquired $199 million worth of Ethereum over the past 48 hours. 

On Friday, the company bought 41,946 ETH worth $130.7 million. Then, 24 hours later, it acquired another 22,676 ETH for $68.67 million.

BitMine Holds Over 3% Of ETH’s Supply

Following those purchases, BitMine now holds 3.73 million ETH tokens worth $11.38 billion, data from StrategyETHReserve shows. 

BitMine ETH holdings (Source: StrategicETHReserve)

That brings its stash to 3.08% of ETH’s total supply. This has put the firm over 61% towards its goal of holding 5% of the crypto’s supply as part of its “Alchemy of 5%” plan.

BitMine could continue with its ETH purchases in coming weeks, as it holds around $882 million in cash reserves that can be used for future buys. 

That could allow the company to establish its dominance in the ETH treasury market, which has seen activity slow down in the past three months. During this period, ETH acquisitions have fallen 81% from 1.97 million ETH in August to 370K ETH bought in November.  

During that slowdown, BitMine had purchased the majority of ETH as well. In the past month, the firm bought 679K ETH worth $2.13 billion. 

Smart Money Traders Are Betting Against ETH In The Short Term

While BitMine adds to its ETH reserves, the crypto space’s best-performing traders by returns, who are tracked as “smart money” traders on Nansen’s platform, are betting on the short-term depreciation of the altcoin.

Smart money traders added $2.8 million in short positions over the past 24 hours, with a cumulative short position of $21 million. 

Meanwhile, US spot Ethereum ETFs (exchange-traded funds) are currently on a two-day outflows streak. Data from Farside Investors shows that the investment products saw over $110 million outflows at the end of the business week. 

Investors pulled $41.5 million from the spot ETH ETFs on Dec. 4, followed by an additional $75.2 million in the latest trading session. 

That was an extension of the negative trend seen last week, when the funds recorded outflows for four out of the five days. The only day that saw net daily inflows was on Wednesday, when investors injected $140.2 million into the funds on the day. 

ETH Price Tries To Break Out Of Consolidation Channel

The recent buys by BitMine come as the ETH price has traded flat in the past week following a 9% drop in the past month. Throughout the past 24 hours, the crypto managed to climb a fraction of a percentage, data from CoinMarketCap shows. 

Daily chart for WETH/USD (Source: GeckoTerminal) 

ETH’s flat trading may soon come to an end, however, as the altcoin attempts to break out of the consolidation channel between $2,707 and $3,055 that it has been trading in over the past fortnight. 

ETH has already been able to cross above the $3,055 resistance, but has since retraced to trade back below the level. Should bulls try to push ETH above this point again in the next 48 hours, the crypto could end up soaring to as high as $3,606 in the short term. 

Conversely, bears taking back control might result in a continuation of the recent oscillation. In an extreme case, sellers could even push ETH below the $2,707 support to as low as $2,331. 

Technical indicators such as short-term Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs), the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) show that momentum has stalled. As such, either bears or bulls can take over and push Ethereum’s price in their desired direction.