BitMine Nears 5% of Ethereum Supply as Treasury Hits $11.8 Billion

BitMine Immersion Technologies added nearly 10,000 ETH in just the past week, pushing its holdings to 5.79 million Ether. That is already about 4.8% of the total coin supply in circulation, and the company's treasury is now valued at $11.8 billion.

This makes BitMine the largest publicly traded holder of Ethereum among exchange-listed companies. A year ago almost nobody talked about a single company holding this much ETH on its balance sheet, and now BitMine sits right on the doorstep of the symbolic 5% supply mark. Back in spring 2025, by comparison, the company's holdings were still counted in the hundreds of thousands of coins, not millions, and few expected this kind of acceleration.

How the company became the top ETH holder

BitMine is chaired by Tom Lee, head of Fundstrat Global Advisors and a long-time Ethereum bull with a public investing track record on Wall Street. Under his leadership BitMine shifted from a classic Bitcoin mining business to a corporate treasury model built entirely around Ether. That pivot turned a little-known company into one of the biggest institutional players in the Ethereum market within about a year and a half.

Shares trading under the ticker BMNR have become a kind of proxy for direct Ethereum ownership for some institutional investors. Buying the stock on an exchange gives a fund or brokerage client exposure to ETH's price without having to arrange custody or go through a crypto exchange directly.

According to CoinTelegraph, the company added close to 10,000 coins last week alone, extending a streak of weekly purchases that has run for several months without any real pause. CoinTelegraph had earlier published a ranking of the seven largest public Ethereum holders, with BitMine sitting in first place by a wide margin over its closest rivals.

85% of the reserve is already staked

Most of the accumulated coins are not just sitting idle on the balance sheet. About 85% of BitMine's holdings are staked through the company's own validator operations. Those ETH tokens simultaneously earn rewards from the Ethereum network instead of just waiting for the price to rise.

Staking at this scale means BitMine effectively runs a mid-sized validator network inside Ethereum on its own. Staking rewards are partly reinvested into further ETH purchases, so the holdings grow through more than just direct buying on exchanges, they also grow through internal reward accumulation.

For BMNR shareholders, this is an argument that the company earns twice on the same asset. The first source of income comes from Ether's price appreciation, and the second comes from steady staking payouts that arrive regardless of price swings.

A share buyback runs alongside the ETH accumulation

BitMine is simultaneously expanding its buyback program for BMNR stock. Earlier in July the company had slowed its ETH purchases to fund a multibillion-dollar buyback, arguing the stock traded too cheaply relative to the value of assets on its balance sheet. Now both tracks run at the same time, without one holding back the other.

For management, this solves two problems at once. The buyback supports the stock price whenever the market values the company below its ETH reserve, while parallel Ether buying keeps rival funds from catching up on accumulation pace.

• Ether accumulation: nearly 10,000 coins added in a single week, with no sign of slowing down.
• The BMNR buyback runs on its own separate financial track.
• Holdings data is disclosed weekly, making BitMine one of the most transparent ETH treasury players in the market.
• Most of the reserve is staked rather than held passively.

Ether is outpacing Bitcoin on price

According to Decrypt, Ethereum has recently been rising faster than Bitcoin. Because of that, the strategies of the two largest public treasury companies have split apart. While BitMine keeps buying ETH, Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, has skipped Bitcoin purchases for a fifth straight week and instead added $525 million to its cash reserve.

The gap between the two approaches makes one thing clear. Even among the biggest corporate crypto holders there is no single playbook right now, some keep buying aggressively while others pause and wait for better entry points. The market effectively has two opposite experiments running side by side. One is aggressive ETH accumulation, the other is a cautious Bitcoin pause.

Some analysts tie the split to the fact that Ethereum gives holders extra income through staking, something Bitcoin does not structurally offer. For a treasury company that changes the yield math entirely, even when the two assets move at roughly the same pace.

What this means for Ethereum holders

Concentrating a large share of the supply in one company's hands cuts both ways. On one side, it confirms genuine institutional demand for Ethereum and shrinks the amount of coins freely circulating on exchanges, which, with demand unchanged, theoretically supports the price. On the other, a single company's decision to sell part of its reserve or sharply shift strategy could visibly move the market price given limited liquidity.

There is a third risk worth watching. Such heavy concentration of staking in one player's hands theoretically increases that company's influence over how the Ethereum validator network operates. For now this is not a threat to network stability, since BitMine's share stays moderate relative to total staking, but the trend is worth tracking.

There is a fourth, less comfortable scenario for the company itself. If Ether's price suddenly drops 20 to 30 percent, the value of BitMine's reserve would shrink proportionally, and the market could start questioning whether taking on more debt or issuing more shares to fund further purchases still makes sense.

For anyone tracking Ethereum from a Ukrainian market angle, the news is mainly a signal of demand from large capital. Ether's dollar price directly affects exchange rates offered by exchangers, so those planning to sell Ethereum for hryvnia tend to get better terms exactly during periods of rising institutional demand like this one.

Is BitMine heading toward 6 million ETH

If the pace of 10,000 ETH per week holds, BitMine will cross the 6 million coin mark within a few months. The company has not named a final accumulation target, but it also has not hinted at any plan to stop. Tom Lee has repeatedly said in public that this is a long-term bet on Ethereum, not a short-term trade.

Simple arithmetic shows the scale of the company's appetite. At this pace for a full year, BitMine could theoretically add another 500,000-plus ETH, not even counting coins earned through staking.

The real question now is not whether BitMine keeps buying Ether. It is how long the market can keep supplying that many coins without putting real pressure on the price, and whether other large players will start competing for the same limited pool of ETH available on exchanges.