Investment Gems

Based on Tom Lee’s recent appearances, BMNR’s strategy looks clear, consistent, and ambitious: build the premier Ethereum treasury and become the institutional proxy for the next phase of finance and AI convergence. The company has pivoted away from mining and into a pure-play Ethereum treasury vehicle, with its entire model focused on maximizing ETH held per share. That means deploying its treasury into ETH (currently ~600,000 ETH as of July 2025), growing holdings through staking rewards, operations, capital raises, and even acquiring other treasury assets, all with the goal of eventually holding 5% of the Ethereum network.

The core bet is that Ethereum will become Wall Street’s settlement layer, much like the U.S. dollar after 1971. BMNR treats ETH not as a speculative token but as “digital oil” fueling DeFi, stablecoins, tokenization, and programmable contracts. Unlike Bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative, ETH is also productive, generating staking yield that gives it equity-like upside. With the GENIUS Act and federal clarity around stablecoins, BMNR sees a wave of tokenized Treasuries, RWAs, and payment rails like Visa and SWIFT moving onto Ethereum. The company positions itself as the public-market gateway for institutions and retail investors who want ETH exposure but can’t (or won’t) hold tokens directly.

Crucially, BMNR isn’t just tracking ETH’s price, it’s amplifying it. Between June and July 2025, ETH rose 1.5x while BMNR rose 9.5x, a 6x multiplier on ETH gains. Although the premium has now faded, it gives an idea of what can happen in some periods.This premium comes from equity-linked strategies, leverage on treasury holdings, and the market assigning value to optionality around ETH, AI, and financial infrastructure. Beyond passively holding ETH, BMNR also plans to operate validators (a “Made in America” network), secure the chain via staking, and invest a sliver of treasury (<1%) in moonshots like AI/Ethereum crossovers and on-chain identity.

Finally, BMNR is explicitly tying its strategy to the AI future. The thesis is that AI agents will need blockchain rails for identity, trustless execution, payments, and value settlement, all areas where Ethereum is already dominant. By holding and staking ETH, BMNR offers equity exposure to both tokenized finance and the AI-native economy. In one line: BMNR aims to be the premier Ethereum treasury company, an equity-market proxy that not only holds ETH but also helps secure and scale the ecosystem as it becomes the foundation for Wall Street’s tokenization and AI’s infrastructure.

Digital Oil

The way BMNR frames it, Ethereum flips the traditional crypto narrative. Unlike Bitcoin, which is mostly inert and built around scarcity, ETH is consumptive and productive at the same time. Every transaction, smart contract, or AI instruction burns gas fees in ETH, which makes it function like oil, consumed to generate energy and economic activity. At the same time, ETH can be staked to secure the network, creating a yield stream. That’s closer to owning productive oil reserves that keep generating income while fueling the system.

This dual nature, scarcity + utility, is what sets ETH apart. Bitcoin relies on its limited supply as its value driver. Ethereum not only has scarcity, but also a constant burn mechanism via EIP-1559, which can make supply deflationary over time. So ETH isn’t just sitting there, it’s being consumed, burned, staked, and recycled back into the system in productive ways.

BMNR’s pitch is that ETH is the “digital oil” powering programmable finance. Oil underpinned the industrial economy of the 20th century; Ethereum underpins the digital economy of the 21st. Stablecoins, tokenized assets, DeFi markets, and even AI-blockchain interactions all run on Ethereum rails. The more activity shifts onto ETH, the more this “fuel” becomes indispensable.

For valuation, BMNR draws the ExxonMobil analogy. Exxon was valued by the reserves of oil it controlled, because those reserves guaranteed future production and cash flow. In the same way, ETH can be valued based on network reserves: circulating supply, staked ETH, and consumption demand. That means ETH might deserve equity-like multiples instead of being treated like a commodity.

AI Optionality

BMNR’s Tom Lee is pushing a bigger idea than just “Ethereum = Wall Street rails.” The company’s framing is that Ethereum won’t just underpin tokenization (stablecoins, RWAs, settlement). It could also become the operating substrate for agentic AI systems. That optionality, ETH as the trust plus payments layer for autonomous AIs, isn’t priced into today’s market, but it could represent an orders-of-magnitude upside scenario.

The problem is simple: today’s AI (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.) is powerful but centralized, opaque, and can’t coordinate economic activity on its own. The next frontier — “agentic AI” — is about autonomous systems that negotiate, transact, and interact with humans and other AIs. To work, they’ll need identity verification, programmable payments, and trustless record-keeping. Blockchain is the natural solution: proof-of-human signatures to confirm origin, stablecoins for microtransactions, and immutable logs to guarantee auditability.

Why Ethereum specifically? Because it already dominates stablecoins ($250B+), has the most secure programmable environment (EVM + staking), is scaling through L2s for cheap microtransactions, and offers composability so AI agents can plug directly into DeFi, tokenized assets, and dApps. In short, if agentic AI needs a financial + coordination backbone, ETH is the leading candidate.

BMNR embeds this optionality directly into its model. First, the ETH treasury: if AIs drive ETH demand, BMNR benefits as one of the largest holders. Second, validator infrastructure: BMNR’s planned “Made in America” validator network could literally process AI-driven transactions, monetizing that activity. Third, moonshot bets: allocating <1% of treasury into AI × blockchain startups (identity, cross-chain auth, agent coordination), similar to Google’s “Other Bets” strategy.

The upside use cases are easy to imagine. Supply chains where AI agents handle logistics and payments on-chain. AI marketplaces where models buy/sell compute or data and settle via Ethereum. Consumer devices (like drones or robots) executing instructions linked to verified wallets and logging payments on-chain. Even AI-to-AI commerce, where autonomous systems negotiate contracts and Ethereum smart contracts enforce execution.

Right now, ETH’s valuation is based on tokenization, DeFi, and stablecoins — maybe a $7–10T TAM. But if ETH becomes the trust and payments layer of the AI economy, the TAM explodes into data, compute, cloud, and digital services — multiples of finance alone. BMNR is essentially saying: we’re buying ETH not only as financial infrastructure, but as the potential operating system of AI itself.

Stablecoin Proliferation Thesis

Finally, the most immediate use case for ETH are stable coins. Right now, stablecoins are the most successful use case in crypto. They already function as the synthetic dollar of the internet, and Ethereum is the dominant chain for issuance and usage. The thesis is straightforward: regulatory clarity plus institutional adoption equals exponential growth, and that growth directly boosts Ethereum’s utility and value.

Today, the stablecoin market sits around ~$280B in circulation, with over 70% minted on Ethereum mainnet and its L2s. They’re used for remittances, DeFi settlement, merchant payments in emerging markets, and as treasury assets for crypto-native firms. In fiat FX, the USD accounts for ~80% of trades. In crypto, the dollar via stablecoins is effectively 100% dominant. Stablecoins don’t challenge dollar hegemony, they extend it globally. Ethereum just happens to be the core settlement layer making it all possible.

The real inflection point came in 2025 with the GENIUS Act. It set a federal framework defining payment stablecoins as dollar-pegged digital assets, established licensing pathways (banks regulated by the Fed, fintechs by the OCC), and required Treasury-backed reserves. That not only makes stablecoins safer, but also turns issuers into massive buyers of U.S. government debt. Treasury Secretary Bessant projects stablecoin reserves could hit $4T, which would make them the single largest holder of Treasuries worldwide. In other words, stablecoins are not anti-dollar, they’re pro-dollar infrastructure.

Ethereum is positioned as the clear winner in this system. It already dominates stablecoin issuance (USDT, USDC, DAI), its programmability integrates stablecoins into DeFi and tokenized finance, and its proof-of-stake model gives institutions security and trust. With L2s like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base scaling cheaply on Ethereum rails, stablecoin growth is unlikely to migrate elsewhere in a meaningful way. Even if Solana or Stellar pick up some share, Ethereum remains the center of gravity.

What does this mean for ETH value? Every stablecoin transaction requires Ethereum blockspace, which means gas fees (paid in ETH) and staking rewards (to secure the network). Thanks to EIP-1559, higher transaction volume also means more ETH burned, driving supply deflation. Stablecoin issuers themselves may stake ETH to secure their settlement layer. In BMNR’s framing, this is Ethereum’s “ChatGPT moment,” the killer app that pulls trillions in activity onto the chain.

BMNR is positioning to capture this curve directly. With ~600,000 ETH already accumulated, its treasury benefits from ETH scarcity as stablecoin activity grows. Its validator network plan means it participates directly in securing these transactions. And if supply really does expand toward $4T, BMNR argues ETH’s demand curve will look a lot like Visa/Mastercard’s growth model, except with staking yields and gas burns amplifying returns. Their TAM estimate: ETH could represent ~$3T in network value from payments and settlement alone.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, BMNR isn’t pitching itself as “just another ETH proxy.” The company’s whole strategy is to turn Ethereum into an investable equity-market play, a leveraged bet on ETH as digital oil for finance, as the trust + payments layer for AI, and as the backbone of the stablecoin boom. If any one of those narratives plays out, BMNR wins big. If two or all three converge, the upside could be orders of magnitude larger than what’s priced in today.

The real question is whether the market will keep assigning BMNR that kind of premium, the same way MicroStrategy captured a multiple on Bitcoin. Right now, ETH’s value is anchored to DeFi and tokenization, but BMNR is betting the story is far bigger: stablecoins scaling into the trillions, AI agents transacting on-chain, and Ethereum becoming the ExxonMobil of the digital economy.

Disclaimer: LONG BMNR. This text expresses the views of the author as of the date indicated, and such views are subject to change without notice. The author has no duty or obligation to update the information contained herein. Further, wherever there is the potential for profit, there is also the possibility of loss. Additionally, the present article is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose. The information contained herein does not constitute and should not be construed as an offering of advisory services or an offer to sell or solicitation to buy any securities or related financial instruments in any jurisdiction. Some information and data contained herein concerning economic trends and performance is based on or derived from information provided by independent third-party sources. The author trusts that the sources from which such information has been obtained are reliable; however, it cannot guarantee the accuracy of such information and has not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of such information or the assumptions on which such information is based