Bitmine is approaching the end of one of the largest corporate ethereum accumulation campaigns on record. Chairman Tom Lee says the company will stop buying once it reaches 5% of ETH supply, a ceiling he said was encouraged by Vitalik Buterin.

Speaking at TOKEN2049 , Tom Lee said the company has imposed a hard cap of 5% of ethereum’s total supply and will stop accumulating ETH once that threshold is reached.

Bitmine holds roughly 6 million ETH, 4.9% of supply, at the time of Lee’s remarks. He said the company needs only about 100,000 ETH more to reach its target.

“We said we have a 5% hard cap. We’re not going to own more than 5% of ethereum,” Lee said. “That’s something that Vitalik kind of asked us to stop at 5%.”

Lee said the company originally expected the strategy to take around five years. Instead, it reached 4.9% of ethereum’s supply in just over a year.

“We thought this would take five years. It took us a little over a year,” Lee said. “More importantly, we did this all in the middle of a bear market.”

Bitmine bought aggressively while ETH prices were depressed, including substantial purchases around $1,500, according to Lee. The company’s strategy has turned it into one of the most concentrated corporate holders of ethereum in the crypto market.

The company has continued adding ETH even as it approaches the cap.

On Oct. 19, Bitmine added another 12,535 ETH , lifting total holdings to 6,041,481 ETH, then worth nearly $14.5 billion.

Two days later, the company staked another 159,728 ETH , worth roughly $390.6 million.

That pushed the share of Bitmine’s treasury deployed into staking to about 86.5%, showing that the strategy is increasingly focused on making its ETH productive rather than simply holding it.

The looming end of Bitmine’s purchases matters because its demand has been one of the most persistent institutional bids in ethereum. Once the 5% ceiling is reached, that buying pressure disappears.

For ETH investors, the question becomes whether exchange-traded fund (ETF) demand, staking growth, and broader institutional adoption can replace Bitmine as a marginal buyer.

Lee also highlighted Bitmine’s inclusion in the Russell 1000, arguing that its stock offers institutions a direct listed-market route into ethereum exposure.

Bitmine may be about to stop buying ETH, but its influence on ethereum’s institutional narrative is unlikely to end there.

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