Tom Lee made a case to increase the authorized share up to 50 billion

Tom Lee, chairman of publicly listed Ether Treasury Bitcoin, has urged support for a proposal to significantly increase the company's authorized share count from 50 million to 50 billion, citing the possibility of future stock splits as the price of Ether drives the company's valuation.

Lee said BitMine's stock price tracks the price of Ether (ETH) closely, and uses the ETH/Bitcoin ratio to chart future valuations. According to Lee, if Bitcoin (BTC) rises to $1 million, ETH could reach $250,000, a scenario that would put BitMine's share price out of reach for most retail investors.

BitMine has transitioned to an ETH treasury strategy by 2025 as a Bitcoin mining and custodial company, but will still retain some of its Bitcoin operations.

ETH reaching $250,000 puts BitMine shares at an “implied value” of about $5,000 per share, which is too expensive for most retail investors. “Not everybody wants a stock price at $500, $1,500 or $5,000. Most people want stocks to stay around $25.”

If Li ETH reaches $250,000, BitMine must initiate a 100:1 stock split to maintain a $25 share price, which would make 43 billion shares outstanding.

“The current number of shares is 426 million, and we are trying to increase the authorized number of shares to 50 billion. This does not mean that we are issuing 50 billion shares. That is what we want the total number of shares to be,” Lee said.

Lee is describing the problem of class discrimination. In finance, unit bias is the psychological tendency of investors to prioritize a number of shares or tokens over their return on investment, risk-to-reward ratio, or other critical investment metrics.

Reactions to Lee's proposal on X were overwhelmingly negative, with many users arguing that raising the allowed sharing limit was a risky move.

“Tom, allowing this high stock count seems fishy and ridiculous because the stock could hit $500. You can do this next year when it's not in the stream,” one user wrote in response.

Related: BitMine Locks Up $1B in Ether as Big Corporations Have Stakes to Produce ETH

BitMine buys another $98 million in ETH as the stash passes 4 million

BitMine bought 32,938 ETH on Tuesday, which is more than $102 million using prices at the time of writing.

The company's treasury passed 4 million ETH, valued at more than $12 billion, in December, as it began stockpiling ETH for production.

In crypto, staking refers to the process of validators locking tokens to secure the proof-of-stake blockchain, allowing them to earn a dividend from the tokens held.

Magazine: Bitcoin Critical Level Is $82.5K, Ethereum ‘Not Done Yet': Trade Secrets