Bitmine’s Annual Shareholder Meeting in Las Vegas

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, along with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is set to attend Bitmine Immersion Technologies’ annual shareholder meeting today in Las Vegas.

This meeting, the first since the company began acquiring Ethereum in June 2025, will focus on a vote to raise the limit of new common shares Bitmine can issue—from 500 million to a staggering 50 billion.

On Wednesday, Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee confirmed the presence of both Buterin and Altman, explaining the reasoning behind this significant increase in share authorizations.

“If we don’t vote for the share increase, the company’s growth will stop,” Lee mentioned in an interview with a Korean media platform.

Basically, Bitmine relies on selling new shares to fund its Ethereum purchases. So, if shareholders don’t approve an increase in shares, it poses a real challenge for the company’s future.

Lee added, “We want to have enough equity so that we never have to seek new approvals again.”

Bitmine is known as one of the digital asset vaults, a type of publicly traded entity focused on buying and holding cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum, the second largest blockchain after Bitcoin, has garnered over $100 billion in investor deposits. Altogether, Bitmine has accumulated around 4.1 million Ethereum tokens, valued at about $13.8 billion.

The attendance of Buterin and Altman at this shareholder meeting came as a bit of a surprise.

Interestingly, Altman has seldom mentioned Ethereum publicly. Still, he launched a project called World through Tools for Humanity, the company he co-founded, which serves as a competitor in the cryptocurrency space.

Lee and Buterin have met previously, as a photo posted by Lee to X indicates their encounter at Token2049, a cryptocurrency conference held in Singapore in October 2025.

However, Buterin has not yet publicly addressed Bitmine, despite it being one of the largest advocates for his blockchain.

In discussions about Ethereum treasury companies, Buterin expressed general support, viewing it as indicative of institutional confidence in the blockchain, while also cautioning against risks like over-leverage.

Lee mentioned that both Altman and Buterin are scheduled to speak at the meeting.