Tom Lee-Backed BMNR Edges Higher After AGM Despite Speaker No-Shows – Chairman Signals Lighter Investment

Shareholders approved a major expansion in Bitmine’s authorized share count to 50 billion from 500 million during the AGM.

• BMNR’s stock edged 0.4% higher after-hours following a dip of over 5% in regular hours. 
• It was among the top trending tickers on Stocktwits as users debated the success of the company’s annual general meeting, where Sam Altman and Vitalik Buterin were no-shows.
• Chairman Tom Lee hinted that decentralized trading platform Lighter could be a potential strategic focus for Bitmine moving forward.

Tom Lee-backed Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) edged higher in after-hours trade on Thursday, even as investors questioned whether the company’s annual general meeting delivered on expectations and questioned the absence of Sam Altman and Vitalik Buterin, who were expected to show up.

BMNR’s stock edged 0.4% higher in overnight trade following a over 5% drop in regular hours. It was the top trending ticker on Stocktwits after the company got shareholder approval to increase its authorized shares to 50 billion from 500 million. BitMine also announced a $200 million investment in Beast Industries earlier in the day, tied to Mr.Beast's upcoming financial platform.

Retail sentiment around BMNR’s stock remained in ‘extremely bullish’ territory at the time of writing, with chatter trending at ‘extremely high’ levels. According to platform data, message volume increased by over 60% in the last 24 hours, culminating in a jump of nearly 280% over the past week.

Bitmine AGM Draws Scrutiny After High-Profile No-Shows

“We have a great lineup of speakers. We have Vitalik, who is the founder and creator of Ethereum, and we have Sam Altman from OpenAI speaking,” Lee said in an interview with Korean outlet Sampro TV on Wednesday, ahead of the annual general meeting. 

However, neither Altman nor Buterin appeared at the meeting. Instead, the only other participant to join Lee on stage was Vladimir Novakovski, founder and chief executive of Lighter (LIT).

Lighter Emerges As Potential Strategic Focus

During the fireside chat, Lee said Bitmine intends to deepen its engagement with Lighter, suggesting the platform could become the company’s next major investment theme alongside MrBeast Industries and Eightco (ORBS). “We want to be doing more things with Lighter,” Lee said, framing the protocol as a potential long-term growth opportunity rather than a short-term trade.

Backed by Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), Lighter is a decentralized perpetual futures trading platform built on Ethereum’s (ETH) Layer 2 infrastructure. The protocol is designed to offer on-chain perpetual trading with lower fees and faster execution compared with Ethereum’s main network. 

LIT Token Lags Despite Rising Retail Interest

Lighter also ranks among the largest Ethereum Layer 2 protocols by total value locked and reports one of the highest daily active user counts, according to DeFiLlama data. LIT’s price, however, has fallen more than 30% since its debut last month. On Thursday night, the token was down 1.9% in the last 24 hours. 

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the token jumped to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘bearish’ over the past day as chatter moved to ‘extremely high’ from ‘high’ levels.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.<