Key Takeaways
- Bitmine now holds 5,805,238 ETH, or 4.8% of ethereum’s 120.7 million token supply.
- BMNR shares are down 56.80% over the past year despite gaining 22.04% in a month.
- Bitmine repurchased 19.1 million shares since July 1 under its $4 billion buyback plan.
The Norwalk, Connecticut, company, trading under the ticker BMNR, now sits comfortably as the largest corporate ethereum holder and the world’s second-largest public crypto treasury, trailing only Strategy Inc.’s massive bitcoin position. Unlike Strategy, however, Bitmine hasn’t touched the sell button. Strategy went the opposite direction, dumping 1,690 BTC this week.
As of Aug. 9 at 6:30 p.m. ET, Bitmine controlled 5,805,238 ETH, valued around $1,928 per token using Coinbase’s reference price. That stash represents 4.8% of ethereum’s circulating supply, currently totaling 120.7 million tokens.
Bitmine calls the endgame the “Alchemy of 5%,” its campaign to control 5% of all ethereum (ETH) in existence. The company is now 96% of the way there after stacking ETH every week since launching the strategy on June 30, 2025, roughly 14 months and 58 consecutive weeks of buying.
“Over the past week, we acquired 7,391 ETH,” remarked Tom Lee, Bitmine’s chairman during the Aug. 10 announcement. “Bitmine has bought ETH every week since the inception of the ETH Treasury Strategy on June 30, 2025 about 14 months ago.”
Staking Machine Now Pumps Out Hundreds of Millions Annually
The balance sheet goes well beyond ethereum. Bitmine also controls 209 bitcoin, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries, tied to Youtube star MrBeast, and a $69 million position in Eightco Holdings, which management says provides indirect exposure to OpenAI because it keeps worldcoin (WLD) on its balance sheet. Add $104 million in cash and securities, and total holdings hit $11.6 billion.
Most of that ethereum held by Lee and company isn’t collecting dust. Bitmine has staked 5,067,309 ETH, or 87% of its holdings, worth roughly $9.8 billion, effectively putting the treasury to work. Bitmine says it has staked more ETH than any other single entity, producing a 2.63% annualized yield and projected $257 million in yearly revenue, which Lee said could hit $294 million once fully staked through MAVAN, the company’s validator network.
BMNR Bounces Short Term but the One-Year Damage Runs Deep
Bitmine also kept hammering its own buyback button, repurchasing 3 million shares over the past week and lifting the total since July 1 to 19.1 million shares under its $4 billion authorization. Lee called it the largest repurchase by any digital asset treasury company and said management still believes the market is undervaluing the shares.
The tape tells a much messier story. BMNR shares slipped 0.98% over the past day but gained 2.96% over five days and 22.04% during the past month. Zoom out and the damage becomes harder to ignore, with BMNR down 9.36% over six months, 33.45% year to date and 56.80% over the past year, despite the company’s ballooning crypto holdings.
Bitmine also landed in the Russell 1000 Large-Cap Index on June 26, while its preferred stock now trades on the NYSE under the ticker BMNP.
Fed Odds Flip as Ether Leaves Nasdaq and Bitcoin in the Dust
Lee said he was disappointed the CLARITY Act, legislation aimed at establishing clearer crypto regulations, won’t receive a Senate vote before the August recess. Instead, he pointed to cooling inflation and jobs data, noting September Fed rate-hike odds have collapsed to 40% from 75% two weeks earlier, a shift he expects could provide fuel for crypto prices.
He added that ethereum crushed the Nasdaq 100 by 2,500 basis points in July, the widest spread since July 2025, while beating bitcoin by 1,100 basis points. Lee stressed that similar performance gaps have historically been followed by Bitmine shares outperforming ethereum during subsequent months.
Heavyweight backers named in the update include Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, Founders Fund, Pantera, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, DCG and investor Bill Miller III. The pressure points now are Bitmine’s weekly ETH purchases, September’s Fed decision and whether battered BMNR shares finally start catching up with the company’s expanding crypto treasury.
So far, the ether stash has buried the company in billions of dollars in unrealized losses. Percentage-wise, the drawdown is painful but hardly catastrophic for a leveraged, pure-ETH strategy built during and after the 2025 peak.
