Bitmine Nears 5% Ethereum Ownership After $32M Buy, Eyes 6,028,946 ETH Total

Bitmine Immersion Technologies just bought another massive chunk of Ethereum. The company picked up 12,532 ETH last week at $2,544 per token — roughly $31.9 million — pushing its total holdings to 6,028,946 ETH.

That’s a staggering number. Ethereum’s total supply sits at 122.1 million tokens, which means Bitmine now controls 4.9% of every ETH in existence. The firm has been chasing what it calls its “Alchemy of 5%” goal — a strategic target to own outright 5% of all circulating Ethereum supply. It’s basically there. The week before this latest buy, Bitmine had already dropped $41 million on ETH, so the pace of accumulation has been relentless. Two big purchases in back-to-back weeks. Not a lot of companies are doing that.

Chairman Tom Lee on the Final 100,000 ETH

Chairman Tom Lee said the firm needs roughly 100,000 more ETH to officially close out its acquisition target. That’s it. After months of aggressive buying, the finish line is close. Lee also made clear that reaching 5% isn’t just a vanity milestone — he thinks it positions Bitmine to outperform Ethereum itself if the market rallies hard.

And his bull case is pretty aggressive. Lee floated the idea that Ethereum hitting $22,000 could push Bitmine’s stock price somewhere between $300 and $500. The shares trade around $26 right now, so that’d be a massive move. He’s betting on tokenization and AI agents with crypto wallets as the catalysts that drive the next big run. Younger investors piling into the space is part of that thesis too. Unclear exactly when he thinks all this plays out, but the directional view is unmistakably bullish.

The correlation between Bitmine’s stock and Ethereum’s price is strong, Lee said. So the company’s equity basically acts like a leveraged ETH bet for investors who want exposure without holding the token directly. That’s probably part of the pitch to institutional buyers.

Staking Revenue and the $16.2 Billion Portfolio

Bitmine isn’t just sitting on its ETH. The company has staked 5,067,309 of those tokens, generating around $336 million in annual staking revenue. That’s real cash flow, not just paper gains tied to price movements. It’s a meaningful income stream for a company that’s essentially built itself into one of the largest single holders of Ethereum on the planet.

Zoom out and the full balance sheet gets even bigger. Bitmine’s total crypto, cash, and investments are estimated at $16.2 billion. That includes 214 Bitcoin, $612 million in cash and securities, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries, and an $85 million stake in Eightco Holdings. So it’s not a pure Ethereum play — there’s diversification across sectors and asset classes. But ETH is clearly the core of what they’re building.

The Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings positions are interesting. Bitmine isn’t just a crypto accumulator; it’s got meaningful exposure to other industries too. Whether that’s a hedge or just opportunistic investing isn’t entirely clear from what the company has said publicly.

Preferred Stock BMNP Climbs Since June Launch

There’s another piece of this that’s worth watching. Bitmine issued a 9.5% perpetual preferred stock — ticker BMNP — at $80 per share back in June. It’s been climbing. The stock closed recently at $99.53. That’s a solid move for a preferred instrument, and it probably tells you something about how investors feel about the company’s direction right now. Preferred stock buyers tend to be conservative. They’re not chasing moonshots. The fact that BMNP has appreciated this much since issuance seems to say they trust the strategy.

Lee has been vocal about the fact that Bitmine’s pace of crypto accumulation is unmatched globally, at least in his view. That’s a bold claim, but the numbers back up the ambition. Consecutive weeks of eight and nine-figure ETH purchases aren’t something most firms can pull off. The capital deployment here has been fast and concentrated.

With roughly 100,000 ETH left to buy before the 5% target is hit, the next purchase — whenever it comes — will probably be the last big one for a while. Lee’s comments around “strategic pause” once the goal is reached suggest the firm shifts gears after that, maybe focusing more on staking yield and portfolio management rather than raw accumulation.

Bitmine’s staking operation alone — 5,067,309 ETH generating $336 million annually — gives it a durable revenue base that doesn’t depend entirely on ETH price appreciation.