Vitalik Buterin, Sam Altman to attend Bitmine shareholder meeting as firm conducts key vote

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will attend Bitmine Immersion Technologies’ annual shareholder meeting today in Las Vegas.

The meeting, the first since the firm began accumulating Ethereum in June 2025, centres on a vote to increase the number of new common shares Bitmine can issue from 500 million to 50 billion.

On Wednesday, Bitmine chair Tom Lee confirmed that Buterin and Altman were attending the meeting while explaining the rationale behind the significant increase in the share authorisation.

“If you don’t vote in favour of increasing the shares, the company will stop growing,” Lee said in an interview on SamproTV, a South Korean media platform.

Bitmine primarily funds its Ethereum purchases by issuing and selling new shares. So it’s a problem if shareholders aren’t willing to let the firm increase the number of shares it can potentially issue.

“We want to have enough shares so that we never have to seek another authorisation again,” Lee said.

Bitmine is one of several so-called digital asset treasuries — publicly traded companies whose mandate is to buy and hold cryptocurrencies.

Bitmine’s crypto of choice is Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain behind Bitcoin and home to more than $100 billion worth of investor deposits. So far, the firm has accumulated just over 4.1 million Ethereum tokens, valued at approximately $13.8 billion.

Star attendees

Buterin and Altman’s attendance at Bitmine’s shareholder meeting is unexpected.

Altman has rarely mentioned Ethereum publicly. He has, however, launched a rival cryptocurrency called World through a company he co-founded, Tools for Humanity.

Buterin and Lee have met before. Pictures posted by Lee on X show Buterin and him together at the Token2049 crypto conference in Singapore in October 2025.

Yet the Ethereum co-founder has not yet commented publicly on Bitmine, one of his blockchain’s biggest supporters.

Buterin has spoken about Ethereum treasury companies in general, expressing support for the concept as it signals institutional confidence in the blockchain, but also warning of potential risks such as overleveraging.

Both Altman and Buterin are expected to give speeches at the meeting, Lee said.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at [e-mail].