Fundstrat’s Tom Lee echoes the view that the digital asset treasury hype may be coming to an end, but remains bullish on Ether, having bought $1.5 billion worth since the market crash.
BitMine Immersion Technologies has recovered a total of 379,271 Ether (ETH) worth nearly $1.5 billion since last weekend’s record cryptocurrency market liquidation event.
According to on-chain data from Arkham Intelligence and BMNR Bullz, which tracks the company’s purchases, the acquisition was split into three waves. 202,037 ETH after the weekend crash, 104,336 ETH on Thursday, and 72,898 ETH on Saturday, but Bitmine has not yet officially confirmed this.
BitMine is the world’s largest Ether treasury company, storing 2.5% of the total supply and more than 3 million ETH worth $11.7 billion. He is already halfway towards his 5% goal and only started accumulating assets in early July when ETH was hovering around the $2,500 level.
“Ethereum has the potential to flip Bitcoin the way Wall Street and the stock market flipped gold after 71 years,” Lee told ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood on Thursday in his latest bullish statement on the asset.
Has the bubble burst?
Despite Lee’s opinion that the digital asset’s financial bubble may have burst, there is continued active accumulation of Ether.
Lee said many DATs are trading below their net asset value (NAV), or the value of the underlying crypto assets. “If it’s not a bubble burst yet… how does the bubble burst?” he told Fortune on Thursday.
Research firm 10x Research also reported on Saturday that major DATs such as Metaplanet and Strategy are trading near or below their NAVs.
But it’s not all bad news: With a strong capital base and deal-savvy management team, DAT “still has the potential to generate meaningful alpha,” they said.
Huobi founder Li Lin wants a piece of that alpha, and has reportedly raised about $1 billion as part of his Ether Vault investment strategy.
Gold envy suppresses cryptocurrencies
Lee told CNBC after Friday’s trade that investors were “licking their wounds” from the record leverage flush, but there was also some “gold envy” as gold had “done really well this year.”
“This is not the top of the crypto cycle, but leveraged longs in crypto are near record lows, so (…) I think we are in the basement and working our way up again.”
Cryptocurrency markets are currently down 15% from their all-time high on October 7, and gold prices are down nearly 3% from Thursday’s all-time high.
Tom Lee spoke on CNBC on Friday. Source: YouTube
