August 27, 2025
at
4:52 pm
EST
MIN READ
Ethereum finally has its own Michael Saylor.
Bitmine, the leading ETH treasury company, is nearing $10 billion in Ethereum just a few months after it started buying and staking the world’s #2 digital asset.
Michael Saylor’s Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) may seem a very long way off with its $71 billion stockpile of Bitcoin but the rate at which Bitmine is acquiring Ethereum is making Saylor’s lead look slightly less mighty.
There is still a long way to go. Bitmine passed MARA holdings several weeks ago to become the second largest holder of crypto as a treasury asset but if Bitmine really wants to be seen in the same category as Strategy, there is still a lot of work to do and a lot of conviction required.
But who is behind it all?
Tom Lee is becoming a household name in the world of crypto. He has a background and long career in traditional finance before pivoting in the last few years into crypto.
In this article, we provide some background to one of crypto’s most talked-about figures.
Early 1990s
1997–1999
1999–2014
2014
2019–Present
2020
2024
June 2025
Born into a Korean family in Michigan, Tom Lee is the third of four children. His father was a psychiatrist and his mother was a homemaker turned Subway franchise owner.
Despite being from a relatively unassuming background, Tom Lee has over the years earned himself the title of “permabull”.
In 2002, Lee made a name and a reputation which has stood the test of time. Working for J.P. Morgan, Lee's analysis of Nextel - a wireless service operator that no longer exists - was met with public criticism from Nextel itself. T open disagreement between a all Street analyst and a publicly traded company was unusual and garnered significant attention f The dispute was featured in a Wall Street Journal article titled, "Unhappy Firm Bites Back: Nextel Says, Analyze This," which detailed the public nature of the feud.
Using his fame, the Fundstrat co-founder has been making very public, very bold predictions for several years now. Most famously, in 2020, Lee correctly predicted that the US stock market would rebound after the 2020 stock market crash.
In 2017, Tom Lee started making predictions about the price of Bitcoin, some of which came true.
However, many of Lee’s predictions have been mistimed. In 2018, Lee predicted that the Bitcoin price would hit $125,000 by 2022. He was right, just a few years too early.
More recently, Lee has predicted a year-end Ethereum price of $12,000. He is very bullish on ETH, and he has brought that energy wholeheartedly into Bitmine’s ETH treasury strategy.
Bitmine’s ‘Alchemy of 5%’ strategy will see the company aim to acquire 5% of Ethereum’s total supply. The acquired ETH will be staked and the company will receive staking rewards of around 4-5% APR.
So far, the ETH strategy seems to be paying off as Bitmine’s share price is up 1000% since the end of June.
Tom Lee and Bitmine are active on Twitter and often post positively about crypto and Ethereum.