By the top of the working week on September 11, the value of Ethereum ($ETH) had risen by 7.46%, reaching $2,619.0 and demonstrating sturdy upward momentum. Over the week as a complete, the asset gained 6.62%.
Commenting on the surge, Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee described the present momentum as the start of a large “face-ripper rally” for brief sellers.
For Lee, this forecast has direct monetary significance: the corporate he oversees is formally the world’s largest company holder of Ethereum.
How U.S. inflation (which got here in worse than anticipated) taught brief sellers a harsh lesson
The catalyst behind such a pointy transfer within the cryptocurrency market was the discharge of the August U.S. Client Value Index (CPI). Though annual inflation totally matched expectations at 3.4%, the Core CPI rose by 0.3% month over month, barely exceeding forecasts.
The information triggered transient market fluctuations and a bounce in Treasury yields, after which markets rapidly turned greater. In accordance with Fundstrat, buyers had adopted extraordinarily defensive positions forward of the discharge. Because of this, the comparatively “innocent” knowledge triggered a large return of capital sitting in money to danger belongings, fueling a wave of compelled short-position liquidations.
This capitulation by market bears advantages Bitmine Immersion Applied sciences (BMNR), a former mining firm whose board Tom Lee has chaired for the reason that summer season of 2025.
The corporate is now actively implementing his “alchemy of 5%” technique and shopping for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization each week. By September 2026, Bitmine had gathered 5.9 million $ETH on its stability sheet, representing roughly 4.9% of the worldwide provide, and had positioned many of the cash into staking to generate yield.
By methodically shopping for cash each week, Lee has successfully put the market in a vise: whereas skeptics waited out the inflation knowledge in fiat, Bitmine captured a key share of the availability, turning this value reversal right into a harsh lesson for brief sellers.
