BitMine says Ethereum buying spree is nearing its 5% cap as Ether slips

BitMine’s aggressive Ethereum accumulation campaign is approaching a self-imposed limit, according to chairman Tom Lee, introducing a potential change in one of the market’s most visible corporate demand sources for ETH. Decrypt and Seeking Alpha reported the comments on Wednesday, with Ether weakening as traders absorbed the prospect that BitMine’s purchases could soon come to an end.

Speaking at Token2049 in Singapore, Lee said BitMine is about 100,000 ETH away from reaching its 5% cap, according to Decrypt. The report said that distance could represent roughly six to seven weeks at the company’s recent accumulation pace, giving the market a clearer idea of when the buying program might slow materially.

BitMine has become the world’s largest Ethereum treasury, making its purchasing activity a closely watched component of institutional demand. Corporate treasury strategies can influence sentiment because they remove tokens from the market and signal conviction from large balance-sheet holders, even though the broader ETH market remains driven by many other sources of supply and demand.

Seeking Alpha reported that Ether slipped after Lee signaled an approaching end to the company’s coin buying. The reaction highlights how closely traders have linked BitMine’s accumulation with the broader institutional narrative around Ethereum. A reduction in one large buyer does not determine the market on its own, but it can alter expectations about incremental demand at the margin.

The key figure in Lee’s comments is the remaining roughly 100,000 ETH before the cap is reached. Decrypt characterized that gap as equivalent to about six to seven weeks of buying based on the current pace. Because both the accumulation rate and market conditions can change, the timing should be treated as an estimate rather than a fixed deadline.

For ETH/USD, the development matters because the market may soon lose a high-profile source of recurring corporate purchases. Traders will now watch whether BitMine slows buying as the cap approaches, whether other institutional buyers offset that change, and how Ethereum’s broader market structure responds once the company reaches its stated allocation limit.