Inside Bitmine’s largest Ethereum purchase since December: ‘Crypto winter is ending’
Tom Lee expects ETH's recovery to extend, citing a strong correlation and rebound of the U.S. equity market.
Bitmine, the world’s largest Ethereum treasury firm, has scaled its holdings to 4.97 million ETH, or 4.12% of the circulating supply.
The firm is now about 1 million ETH away from its 5% supply target, or about 6 million ETH.
Bitmine’s weekly ETH buys jump 41%
The firm reported that it bought 101,627 ETH, the largest bid since December 2025. In the first and second weeks of April, it scooped 71.3K ETH and 71.9K ETH, respectively. In other words, last week’s bid was 41% higher than the previous buying.
In fact, in the last week of March, Bitmine acquired 65.3K ETH, underscoring an increased pace of purchases in the past four weeks. Commenting on April’s accelerated buying spree, Tom Lee, Bitmine’s chairman, said,
Our base case; ETH is in the final stages of the ‘mini-crypto winter.’ We see growing signs that the ‘mini-crypto’ winter is coming to an end. As downside tail risks for the US-Iran war diminish, ETH has risen 41% from its early February lows.
Since February, the altcoin has bounced from $1.74K to the 2026 peak of $2.46K. At the time of writing, ETH traded at $2.31K, underscoring that it had given back part of the recent gains.
However, according to Lee, the ongoing crypto winter was nearing an end. He added,
While many believe the crypto winter may last through the Fall of 2026, our view remains that the crypto winter is much closer to ending.
He continued,
Every major crypto winter since 2015 has coincided with an equity drawdown of at least 20%. In fact, the 2025 crypto drawdown moved in sync with the 20% decline in the S&P 500. But in 2026, the equity decline has been milder at -8%.
Will Ethereum extend its 2026 recovery?
On-chain data echoed Lee’s projections.
According to Realized Price Bands, a key metric that has flagged past cycle tops and bottoms, ETH was currently at a pivotal price zone.
Notably, ETH was attempting to reclaim the realized price (on-chain cost basis for holders) at $2,300.
Whenever ETH defended the realized price as support in the past, it rallied higher, closer to the upper band. In contrast, losing the realized price as support could increase the odds of slipping to the lower band currently at $1.15K.
Final Summary
- Bitmine increased the pace of ETH buys by 41%, with Tom Lee projecting that the ‘mini crypto winter’ could be over soon, citing U.S. equity recovery.
- ETH price reclaimed a key realized price level of $2,300, further supporting Lee’s projection of potential recovery for the altcoin.
