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Fundstrat cofounder and BitMine chairman Tom Lee, whose company holds a massive $16 billion position in Ethereum, has turned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao's (CZ) viral Twitter humor into pragmatic investment analysis.
While retail investors try to determine the market's phase from charts, the fund under Lee's control has accumulated nearly 5% of the world's entire ETH supply.
The trigger was CZ's nighttime selfie in green tones, with the brief caption "Soon...".
While traders searched the green filter for a hint at an "Uptober" rally or a rise in the BNB token, Tom Lee reposted the post, responding to the Binance founder with a direct question to his audience: "Agreed. Do you own enough crypto?"
The interaction between the two industry heavyweights coincided with major shifts in the ecosystem. At the recent Korea Blockchain Week conference in Seoul, Tom Lee confirmed that the market is in an active phase of the bull cycle, supported by demand from AI systems, and maintained his $150,000 price target for Bitcoin.
CZ himself has previously urged readers not to look for hidden financial advice in his posts, stating that any alignment with price movements was coincidental, while also emphasizing the fundamental strength of BNB Chain's infrastructure.
This entire dialogue is unfolding against a stable market backdrop. By the end of September, Bitcoin is firmly holding around $83,300, Ethereum is trading near $2,698, and BNB remains close to $757, with the major assets recording net gains of 7–11% over the past 30 days.
While everyone is joking
Behind Tom Lee's rhetorical question lies a concrete corporate practice, backed by his company's status as the largest institutional holder. Publicly traded investment company BitMine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) provides an example of aggressive long-term accumulation.
According to its official financial report dated September 28, BitMine reached a historic milestone, holding 6,001,302 ETH (around $16.2 billion).
The corporate purchasing program "Alchemy of 5%," launched in the summer of 2025, is already 98% complete, giving Tom Lee's companies control of 4.9% of Ethereum's total market supply.
Meanwhile, around 84% of these holdings (~5.067 million ETH) have been staked, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual passive income for the company.
The heavyweights' synchronized optimism comes as October 10 approaches—the date when, last year, the market suffered the largest liquidation event in its history, totaling $19 billion. At the time, the industry consensus was that systemic failures and vulnerabilities in Binance's margin system had caused the cascading collapse.
It will soon become clear what really lies behind this multibillion-dollar humor: real groundwork for a surge or another trap ahead of a critical date.
Arman Shirinyan
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
