Fundstrat Co-founder, BitMine Chairman. The companies under Tom Lee hold an Ethereum position worth up to $16 billion. Today, he has transformed the humorous remarks of Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) that became popular on the X platform into more practical investment analysis.
While retail investors are still trying to determine the current phase of the market by analyzing charts, the funds controlled by Lee are said to have accumulated a purchase of nearly 5% of the total Ethereum supply in ETH.
The catalyst was a slightly green-toned selfie posted by CZ at night, with only a brief caption: “Soon ...”
When traders tried to find indications of a rise in “Uptober” or a strengthening of the BNB token through this layer of green filters, Tom Lee reposted this post and directly asked its own audience, “Agreed. Do you hold enough cryptocurrencies?”
The interaction between these two industry heavyweights coincides with significant changes in the crypto ecosystem. Tom Lee recently confirmed at the Korea Blockchain Week conference held in Seoul that the market is in an active phase of a bull cycle, stating that this phase is supported by the demand from the AI system; at the same time, he maintained his target price of $150,000 for Bitcoin unchanged.
CZ Previously, he also reminded readers not to look for hidden financial advice in his posts, stating that any coincidence with price trends was merely coincidental; however, at the same time, he also emphasized the fundamental strength of the BNB Chain infrastructure.
The entire conversation took place against a relatively stable market backdrop. As of the end of September, Bitcoin remained steady at around $83,300, Ethereum traded near $2,698, and BNB was maintained around $757. The net increase in value for major assets over the past 30 days ranged from 7% to 11%.
When everyone is just joking...
Behind this rhetorical question Tom Lee, there is a set of specific corporate operations, and the company's status as the largest institutional holder provides support for this. BitMine Immersion Technologies ( NYSE : BMNR ), a company that lists its shares on the US stock market, is an example of aggressive long-term accumulation.
According to the official financial report released by the company on September 28th, BitMine has reached a historic milestone by holding 6,001,302 ETH, which is approximately equivalent to 16.2 billion US dollars.
The company's corporate procurement program " Alchemy of 5%" launched in the summer of 2025 has currently been completed by 98%, enabling the companies under Tom Lee to control 4.9% of the total Ethereum market supply.
At the same time, approximately 84% of these holdings (about 5.067 million ETH) have been used for staking, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in passive income for the company each year.
As these heavyweight figures simultaneously send out optimistic signals, the date of October 10th is approaching. Reports indicate that on this day last year, the market experienced the largest liquidation event in history, with a total amount of $19 billion. At that time, it was widely believed within the industry that a systemic failure and vulnerabilities in the Binance margin trading system triggered a chain reaction of collapses.
What exactly does this “humor” involving billions of dollars mean? Is it truly paving the way for a rise, or is it just another trap before a key date? It will soon become clear.
