BitMine lost $8 billion on ETH but Tom Lee still made tens of millions

Tom Lee’s Ethereum bet has cratered the BitMine Immersion Technologies balance sheet by more than $8 billion. His personal compensation package, however, is still worth tens of millions of dollars. 

BitMine is the publicly traded ether (ETH) acquisition company that Lee chairs. Its most recent quarterly filing disclosed a so-called treasury of 4,473,459 ETH, acquired for a not-so-brilliant cost basis of $16.97 billion as of February 28. Fair value on that date was only $8.79 billion. 

In other words, thanks to Lee’s leadership, the company had an unrealized loss of $8.18 billion, or just over 48%, below its then-average cost basis of $3,795 per ETH.

Undeterred, the company kept buying anyway and by May 17 had reported 18% more: 5,278,462 ETH.

Indeed, the company has repeatedly proclaimed that it “aims to eventually hold 5% of the total ETH supply” because of the importance of alchemy. 

However, like every so-called alchemist throughout human history, BitMine has failed to discover anything except how to make money disappear. 

Meanwhile, Lee, his co-executives, and the agents who keep BitMine’s stock printer running have done extraordinarily well on a personal basis.

$348 million in warrants before the losses even began

BitMine became an ETH treasury company in July 2025 by hiring Lee-affiliated firm Ethereum Tower as strategic advisor. 

• That deal cost shareholders 3,192,620 warrants at an exercise price of $5.40. That fair value was $348.96 million, expensed immediately against fiscal 2025 earnings. 

• The placement agent on the related June 2025 stock offering, ThinkEquity LLC, walked away with another 1,231,945 warrants worth $134.65 million.

• Three men — then-Chief Executive Jonathan Bates, Chief Financial Officer Raymond Mow, and President Erik Nelson — collected $3.37 million in combined salary, bonus, and stock for the year. 

• Outside directors split another $1 million in stock awards.

Tens of millions for Tom Lee

Five months after those strategic advisor warrants, BitMine asked stockholders to approve a new package for Lee, who had assumed the chairman role.

Despite BitMine’s common stock languishing 79% below its 52-week high at the time, a majority of voting power agreed on January 15, 2026.

The package was worth up to $95 million in cash over five years. BitMine paid $15 million upfront and committed to $20 million more in fixed payments over four years. The remaining $60 million unlocks only if BitMine hits annual revenue hurdles.

Targets escalate from $200 million in fiscal 2027 to $500 million in fiscal 2030. In addition to the cash, Lee received 1.5 million time-vesting restricted stock units and 4.5 million performance units.

Performance units vest at $125 and $250 share price targets. 

Curiously, BitMine’s board justified the lavish deal by calling Lee a uniquely qualified leader. In actual fact, the company’s ETH treasury was already underwater by more than $4 billion at the time of the January vote, and losses have doubled since then.

Read more: Even Ethereum treasury companies are selling ETH to pay off debt

Compensation for me, dilution for thee

BitMine’s common stock has lost 30% of its value year-to-date, and 88% since its 52-week high.

The company’s quarterly filing acknowledged the likelihood of a poor stock price, “a 20% ETH correction can result in 50% equity drawdowns due to leverage and collapsing premiums.”

Surpassing that warning by more than double, ETH has already declined 42% from BitMine’s average purchase price.

Funding BitMine’s purchases of ETH requires an extraordinary pace of shareholder dilution. While shareholders burden losses, Lee and his leadership receive their compensation regardless.

BitMine’s at-the-market dilutive offerings of its common stock through Cantor Fitzgerald and ThinkEquity are authorized up to $24.5 billion. Through February 2026, those agents had already diluted shareholders by an addition 253 million shares for $10 billion in net proceeds, collecting $122.3 million in commissions.

Protos has previously documented how BitMine’s paper losses on ETH now exceed the customer losses at FTX. That terrible figure has remained true.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.