Tom Lee sees crypto’s recent weakness as part of a broader selloff in AI stocks and Asian markets, as investors pull back from risk.
BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) said on Monday its crypto, cash, and equity holdings were worth $15.1 billion on October 18, down from $16.2 billion a week earlier.
Most of that total is Ethereum (ETH). BitMine marked its Ether at $2,365 per token, using Coinbase prices, against $2,544 in the prior update. That is its lowest weekly mark since the update for August 16, according to its SEC filings.
The company bought 12,535 ETH over the week, taking its treasury to 6,041,481 tokens. That equals 4.9% of the 122.1 million ETH in supply, short of BitMine’s 5% goal. The buy nearly matched the 12,532 ETH BitMine added in the week to October 11.
Cash and marketable securities fell to $582 million, the fourth weekly drop in a row from $714 million on September 20. BitMine’s release gives no reason for the cash decline.
Lee Cites AI Stock Selloff
Chairman Tom Lee warned in a post on X on October 13 that a slump in South Korean equities could hit crypto. He said in Monday’s release that investors’ appetite for risk has shrunk over the past few weeks. He tied that to concerns over AI funding and AI model safety. Lee also cited the escalating US-Iran war, anxiety ahead of the US midterm elections and rising bond yields worldwide.
Lee said those worries set off a selloff in AI stocks, including chip and memory makers. That selloff then spread to South Korea and Taiwan, whose stock markets those companies dominate, he said.
“Crypto is widely held in the US, Korea and Taiwan. So naturally, when investors in those regions de-risk, this creates spillover pressures in crypto markets,” Lee stated.
He noted that past price drops that came while fundamentals held up have offered attractive risk and reward. He said he expects the same this time, citing crypto’s exposure to modernizing financial rails and to agentic AI.
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Legal Note Drops The Finished-Buying Line
Lee said in an October 7 video message that BitMine needed about 100,000 more ETH. BitMine’s next weekly release then added a line to its note on forward-looking statements, and that line cited a management statement that BitMine is largely finished buying ETH.
Monday’s note drops that statement. Its wording on buying matches the updates through the week to October 4, which cited continued weekly ETH acquisitions, without any explanation.
The same note lists Lee’s staking projections. He put annual staking revenue at $309 million on the 5,067,309 ETH BitMine has staked. That staked count has not moved in any weekly update since August 9. Fully staked, he said, the treasury would earn $369 million at a 2.58% seven-day yield.
