What a $125 mln Ethereum buy means for Bitmine’s Russell 3000 dreams

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the world’s largest Ethereum treasury firm, continues to scale its dip buying amid ETH’s price pullback. 

Notably, the Tom Lee-led firm scooped an extra $125.9 million worth of ETH (60K tokens) via Kraken and BitGo. 

Worth pointing out that the 60K ETH haul was still less than the 71K ETH purchase the firm made last week. But it continues to aggressively accumulate during the recent ETH discount window. 

ETH’s price has fallen by nearly 15% in May and traded at $2K, partly accelerated by weak market sentiment and renewed U.S.-Iran war fears.

For Tom Lee, however, the pullback has been an ‘attractive’ buying opportunity to aggressively scale to its 6 million ETH holding target. 

The firm currently holds 5.3 million ETH. If the recent weekly buying pace of 60K-100K ETH continues, Bitmine may hit its 6 million ETH goal in the next two to three months. Nearly 90% of the 5.3 million ETH is now staked. 

Russell 3000 Index to include Bitmine

Separately, the world’s largest ETH treasury firm will score another milestone next month. The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) confirmed that Bitmine will be included in the preliminary list of its Russell 3000 Index ahead of the June rebalancing. 

The Russell 3000 Index tracks the top 3000 U.S. companies by market size, with strict requirements that the stock stay above $1 and trade on major exchanges like the Nasdaq or the NYSE. 

If finally accepted at the end of June, Bitmine will automatically be included in ETFs tracking the Russell 3000 Index. This would effectively increase its potential inflows, and likely, its uplisting on the Russell 1000 Index in the future. 

The Russell 1000 Index tracks the top 1000 largest U.S. public firms by market cap. However, this update was swept away by the broader crypto market pullback amid renewed fears of a U.S.-Iran war.  

Bitmine stock [BMNR] fell 3.7% to $18.8 on Friday, bringing year-to-date (YTD) losses to 30%. Interestingly, ETH had a similar YTD performance, underscoring the strong correlation between the two. 

Final Summary

• Bitmine deepened its dip buying with a $126M ETH purchase as the altcoin’s price pullback hit 15% 
• The firm could easily climb to the Russell 1000 Index, which tracks the largest U.S. firms.