Tom Lee sees $2 trillion wealth transfer fueling crypto demand as Bitmine buys more ether

Tom Lee, chairman of ether ETH$2,529.87 treasury firm Bitmine BMNR$24.01, said he sees a wave of inherited wealth flowing to younger investors as a potential driver of the next crypto bull market.

Lee, a Wall Street veteran who also co-founded financial research and asset management firm Fundstrat in 2014 and serves as its chief investment officer, pointed to estimates from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Fundstrat suggesting between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in wealth could change hands from 2026 through 2028.

“The wealth transfer underway is expected to support the upcoming crypto bull market as those inheriting wealth are younger and likely have a higher risk appetite for crypto and equities,” Lee said in a Monday statement.

His remarks echoed what Vlad Tenev, CEO of digital brokerage Robinhood, highlighted in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer last month, saying more than $100 trillion in wealth is set to pass from older to younger generations over the coming decades.

The idea is that younger investors may put more of their inherited money into crypto than previous generations, adding another source of demand. How much of that wealth will actually reach digital assets, though, is unclear.

Lee also noted Wall Street’s growing use of blockchain technology to represent financial assets, the rise of AI applications and crypto treasury companies holding tokens for the long term as possible drivers of a new rally.

Lee’s remarks came alongside Bitmine’s latest crypto holdings update, which showed the ether treasury firm inching closer to its goal of owning 5% of the token’s supply.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies BMNR$24.01 picked up another 12,532 ETH last week, worth roughly $32 million at Monday’s price.

The purchase lifted its holdings to 6,028,946 ETH, worth roughly $15.3 billion. That’s about 4.9% of ether’s 122.1 million token supply, leaving the company some 76,000 ETH short of its goal of owning 5%.

At last week’s pace, Bitmine could hit that target in about six weeks.

Lee said last week the company plans to stop accumulating ETH once it reaches the 5% mark. Since its pivot to an ether-focused strategy in June 2025, the firm said it bought ETH every week.

Bitmine has staked about 5.07 million ETH, or 84% of its holdings, and projects roughly $336 million in annualized staking revenue at current yields.