Tom Lee, chairman of listed Ether finance firm BitMine, urged shareholders to support a proposal to dramatically increase the corporate's authorized share count from 50 million to 50 billion, citing the potential need for future stock splits as the value of Ether determines the corporate's valuation.
Lee said that BitMine's stock price closely follows the value of Ether (ETH) and that he has modeled potential future valuations using the ETH/Bitcoin ratio. According to Lee, ETH could reach $250,000 if Bitcoin (BTC) rises to $1 million, a scenario that may drive BitMine's stock price to levels that he said can be inaccessible to most retail investors.
BitMine transitioned from a Bitcoin mining and holding company to an ETH treasury strategy in 2025, but still retains a few of its Bitcoin operations.
According to Lee, if ETH reaches $250,000, the “implied price” for BitMine shares can be around $5,000 per share, which is way too expensive for many retail investors. “Not everyone wants a stock price of $500, $1,500 or $5,000. Most people want the stock to remain around $25.”
Source: Tom Lee
Lee said that if ETH reaches $250,000, BitMine would should initiate a 100:1 stock split to keep up the share price at $25, which might end in 43 billion shares outstanding.
“Currently there are 426 million shares outstanding and we try to extend the authorized variety of shares to 50 billion. That doesn't mean we issue 50 billion shares. We want the utmost total variety of shares to be that top,” Lee said.
Source: Tom Lee
Lee describes the unit bias problem. In finance, unit bias is the psychological tendency of investors to prioritize the variety of stocks or tokens held over return on capital, risk-reward ratio, or other critical metrics used to judge an investment.
The reactions to Lee's suggestion too
“Tom, it looks lazy and ridiculous to approve the next share count since the stock could go to $500. You can try this next 12 months if it's not within the gutter,” one user wrote in response.
Source: WAGMI Capital MGMT
BitMine buys one other $98 million of ETH as supply exceeds 4 million
BitMine purchased 32,938 ETH on Tuesday, price over $102 million based on prices on the time of writing.
The company's money balance surpassed 4 million ETH in December, valued at over $12 billion, as the corporate also began investing ETH to generate income.
Cryptocurrency staking is the method by which validators lock tokens to secure a proof-of-stake blockchain that permits them to earn yield from the staked token.
