Original author: Xiao Bing
As of August 24, BitMine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) holds 5,847,611 ETH, worth approximately $14.3 billion, accounting for 4.84% of the total Ethereum supply. They are about 187,000 ETH short of their self-set goal of 5% (approximately 6.04 million ETH). At the recent purchasing rate of 32,447 ETH per week, this target can be achieved in about six weeks.
The chairman of BitMine is Tom Lee, one of Wall Street's most prominent crypto bulls and co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors. He refers to this target as the "Alchemy of 5%," and since initiating the Ethereum treasury strategy on June 30, 2025, BitMine has been purchasing ETH weekly without interruption.
A public company is about to become one of the largest single token holders in the world's second-largest blockchain network, as well as the largest staker.
From Mining Machine Cooling to ETH Whales
BitMine was originally a small company making immersion cooling mining equipment. In early 2025, after Tom Lee took over, the company underwent a radical strategic transformation: from selling mining equipment to hoarding Ethereum.
The growth has been very rapid.
By August 2025, their holdings reached 1% of ETH supply, and in September it reached 2%. In September of that year, the company raised $365 million by issuing additional shares at $70 per share. By March 2026, holdings surpassed 4.66 million ETH, and by May it surpassed 5.2 million ETH. In June 2026, the company again raised $274 million by issuing preferred shares with a 9.5% annual interest rate (code: BMNP), priced at $80 per share. Investors included ARK Invest (Cathie Wood), Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Kraken, and Galaxy Digital.
On June 26, 2026, BitMine was included in the Russell 1000 large-cap index.
Besides ETH, BitMine also holds 210 Bitcoin, an $180 million stake in Beast Industries under MrBeast, a $89 million stake in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS), and approximately $308 million in cash and securities. The company categorizes Beast and Eightco as "moonshot investments," with total assets of approximately $14.9 billion.
Largest Staker
BitMine is not just hoarding coins. It has staked a significant amount of ETH on the Ethereum network.
As of August 23, BitMine has staked 5,067,309 ETH, accounting for about 87% of its total holdings, worth around $12.4 billion. The company built its own staking platform called MAVAN, initially for its own assets, with plans to open it to institutional investors and custodians. According to BitMine's disclosed annualized yield of 2.61% over seven days, the staking generated an annual income of approximately $287 million.
Putting this figure into the context of the entire Ethereum network: the total amount of staked ETH across the network is about 42 million, accounting for 34% of the total supply. BitMine's 5.07 million staked ETH accounts for approximately 12% of the total staked amount on the network. Lido is currently the largest staking service provider, holding about 8.83 million staked ETH, making up 20.9% of the staking market. BitMine's staking scale alone reaches 57% of Lido's.
Tom Lee proudly stated that BitMine's staked ETH is more than any other entity in the world.
What Does 5% Mean?
Holding 5% of the ETH does not give BitMine any direct control over the Ethereum network; upgrades to the Ethereum protocol are determined through the EIP process and rough consensus among core developers, unaffected by the amount of tokens held. Owning ETH does not equate to having voting rights. Ethereum also does not have an on-chain governance mechanism.
However, a 12% share of the total network staking is not a number to be underestimated.
The PoS consensus of Ethereum relies on the widespread distribution of validators to maintain network security and resistance to censorship. There is considerable controversy in the community regarding Lido's 20% share of staked assets, suggesting that excessive concentration by a single entity could pose systemic risks. BitMine's 12% staked share, combined with its status as a publicly traded company bound by U.S. securities laws, means that its staking actions could be influenced by the SEC, CFTC, or other regulatory bodies.
Consider an extreme scenario: if the U.S. government were to implement some form of sanction or compliance requirement on Ethereum (similar to the OFAC sanctions on Tornado Cash), BitMine, as a public company, would have to comply, and its controlled 5.07 million staked ETH represents 12% of the network's consensus weight. If a company is forced to change its validation behavior due to regulatory pressures, the impact would be felt not only by that company but also on the neutrality of the entire network.
This is not a theoretical concern. Lido had a public disagreement with the core Ethereum developers in August 2026 over EIP-8363 (a proposal affecting staking returns). When the staked participants become large enough, they are no longer just passive stakeholders but become power nodes in protocol politics.
Two Sides of the Investment Narrative
The investment narrative for BitMine can be understood from two completely opposite directions.
The bullish logic chain is as follows: the current price of ETH is far below BitMine's average purchase price; if the fundamentals of the Ethereum ecosystem improve (acceleration of RWA tokenization, increased L2 activity, rising inflow of ETH ETFs), the ETH price is likely to rebound above $4,000, and BitMine's paper losses will quickly turn into profits. Meanwhile, the annualized staking income of $287 million provides a cash flow floor. After being included in the Russell 1000, continuous buying by passive index funds will support the stock price, and the current NAV discount on the stock offers a margin of safety.
The bearish logic chain is equally clear: the relative weakness of ETH is not a short-term fluctuation but reflects a market re-evaluation of Ethereum's role in the AI era. BitMine's entire investment thesis is based on the judgment that "ETH should be more expensive"; if ETH fluctuates long-term between $2,000 and $3,000, the $9.1 billion unrealized losses will not disappear, the 9.5% preferred stock dividends will still need to be paid, and the staking yield (2.6%) is far from enough to cover financing costs.
The company has no substantive revenue sources apart from ETH, which represents a leveraged bet on a single asset, not an operational enterprise with diversified income streams.
Tom Lee noted in a statement on August 24 that ETH rose 30% in the past week, the largest weekly increase since May 2025, and that historically, similar magnitude weekly increases often mark the beginning of larger upward trends.
With only 187,000 ETH away from 5%, at current prices, that's about $460 million. For a company that is buying every week, this number could be crossed before the end of the year. By then, the crypto industry will face an unprecedented situation: a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange holding over 5% of the token supply of the world's second-largest blockchain, staked 12% of the network's consensus weight, with unrealized losses potentially still in the tens of billions of dollars.
Whether the "Alchemy of 5%" can turn stone into gold entirely depends on the price direction of ETH.
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