By the end of the working week on September 11, the price of Ethereum ($ETH) had risen by 7.46%, reaching $2,619.0 and demonstrating strong upward momentum. Over the week as a whole, the asset gained 6.62%.
Commenting on the surge, Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee described the current momentum as the beginning of a massive "face-ripper rally" for short sellers.
For Lee, this forecast has direct financial significance: the company he oversees is officially the world's largest corporate holder of Ethereum.
How U.S. inflation (which came in worse than expected) taught short sellers a harsh lesson
The catalyst behind such a sharp move in the cryptocurrency market was the release of the August U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI). Although annual inflation fully matched expectations at 3.4%, the Core CPI rose by 0.3% month over month, slightly exceeding forecasts.
The data caused brief market fluctuations and a jump in Treasury yields, after which markets quickly turned higher. According to Fundstrat, investors had adopted extremely defensive positions ahead of the release. As a result, the relatively "harmless" data triggered a massive return of capital sitting in cash to risk assets, fueling a wave of forced short-position liquidations.
This capitulation by market bears benefits Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), a former mining company whose board Tom Lee has chaired since the summer of 2025.
The company is now actively implementing his "alchemy of 5%" strategy and buying the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization every week. By September 2026, Bitmine had accumulated 5.9 million $ETH on its balance sheet, representing approximately 4.9% of the global supply, and had placed most of the coins into staking to generate yield.
By methodically buying coins every week, Lee has effectively put the market in a vise: while skeptics waited out the inflation data in fiat, Bitmine captured a key share of the supply, turning this price reversal into a harsh lesson for short sellers.