A publicly listed company has quietly accumulated more than 6 million Ether, giving it control of close to 5% of Ethereum’s entire supply.
The company is BitMine Immersion Technologies, ticker BMNR, and if the name sounds more like a Bitcoin mining company than an Ethereum whale, there is a good reason for that.
Bitcoin mining was historically part of its business. Then BitMine changed direction.
In June 2025, the company adopted Ethereum as its primary treasury reserve asset and brought veteran Wall Street strategist Tom Lee on as chairman. Just under 15 months later, BitMine says it holds 6,001,302 ETH. At the $2,698 ETH reference price used in its latest September 28 treasury update, that Ether alone was worth roughly $16.2 billion. BitMine estimates its position represents approximately 4.9% of Ethereum’s 122.1 million ETH supply.
The company is not finished. Its publicly stated target is to own 5% of all Ether.
Welcome to what BitMine calls the “Alchemy of 5%.”
First, What Exactly Is BitMine?
BitMine Immersion Technologies is a publicly traded US company whose shares trade under the ticker BMNR. Its history is tied to Bitcoin mining and digital-asset infrastructure. However, the company has evolved into something considerably different.
In its regulatory filings, BitMine describes its current business as combining a digital-asset treasury anchored in ETH with an operating platform historically focused on Bitcoin mining and hosting. Its strategy is to accumulate Ethereum for the long term while also using some of those holdings for staking and other Ethereum-native activities.
The big change came on June 30, 2025. That day, BitMine announced a $250 million private placement to establish an Ethereum treasury. The company said ETH would become its primary treasury reserve asset. At the same time, Thomas “Tom” Lee joined BitMine as chairman. The ETH shopping spree began shortly afterwards. And it has been quite a shopping spree.
Who Is Tom Lee?
Tom Lee is better known in financial markets as the co-founder and Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors. According to BitMine’s leadership profile, Lee previously worked as J.P. Morgan’s Chief Equity Strategist and has spent more than three decades in equity research and financial markets. He is chairman of BitMine, not its CEO. The current chief executive is Chi Tsang.
It is useful shorthand, but Lee does not personally own all six million ETH. BitMine is a publicly listed company with shareholders. Lee is the chairman and one of the most visible architects and promoters of its Ethereum strategy.
How Did BitMine End Up With 6 Million ETH?
BitMine says it began its Ethereum treasury strategy on June 30, 2025 and has purchased ETH every week since. By August 2025, just weeks after launching the strategy, the company had already accumulated more than one million ETH. The treasury continued growing through late 2025 and 2026.
By May 2026, BitMine held around 5.4 million ETH. By June, that had risen above 5.6 million ETH. Earlier in September, it reported approximately 5.96 million ETH. Then came the latest purchase.
During the week ending September 27, BitMine added another 17,362 ETH, according to The Block’s reporting on the company’s latest disclosure. That pushed the total to: 6,001,302 ETH.
At roughly $2,698 per ETH, the latest 17,362 ETH addition had a market value of about $46.8 million. BitMine did not disclose the average price it actually paid for those 17,362 ETH.
BitMine Now Holds Nearly 5% of All Ethereum
Six million ETH is already a very large number. The percentage makes it easier to understand just how large. BitMine says Ethereum had approximately 122.1 million ETH in supply as of September 27. Its 6,001,302 ETH therefore represents approximately: 4.9% of Ethereum’s total supply.
Independent figures cited by The Block similarly place BitMine at just under 5% of circulating ETH.
Think about that for a moment. Roughly one out of every 20 ETH in existence is now held by one publicly listed company. That is why BitMine’s Ethereum strategy has become difficult to ignore.
What Is the “Alchemy of 5%”?
BitMine has given its target a rather dramatic name: The Alchemy of 5%.
The objective is straightforward. The company wants to accumulate 5% of Ethereum’s supply. At 4.9%, BitMine says it has reached approximately 98% of that target. Based on Ethereum’s current supply, The Block estimates the company is only around 104,000 ETH short of reaching the 5% threshold. Unchained has also calculated that BitMine is now within roughly that amount of its goal.
For perspective, BitMine once bought more than 100,000 ETH in some individual weeks. Its latest addition was just 17,362 ETH. That means BitMine is getting close enough to its target that the pace of accumulation has started attracting attention of its own.
Why Does BitMine Want So Much Ethereum?
BitMine’s thesis is that Ethereum could become increasingly important infrastructure for the financial system. When it first announced the treasury strategy in 2025, the company pointed specifically to stablecoins, tokenised assets, decentralised finance and smart contracts as reasons for focusing on Ethereum.
Its original SEC-filed announcement argued that holding ETH provides something companies holding Bitcoin cannot get in exactly the same way: the ability to participate directly in the network.
Ethereum uses a proof-of-stake system. ETH holders can stake their coins to help secure the blockchain and, in return, earn staking rewards. That means BitMine does not intend for six million ETH to simply sit in a digital vault looking expensive. A large portion is working.
More Than 5 Million ETH Is Already Staked
As of September 27, BitMine reported 5,067,309 ETH staked. That is approximately 84% of its entire Ethereum treasury. At BitMine’s $2,698 reference price, the staked position was worth approximately $13.7 billion.
The company said its current staking operations imply approximately $358 million in annualised staking revenue, although actual future revenue can change with ETH prices, staking yields, network conditions and how much of the treasury remains staked.
BitMine has also developed its own staking infrastructure called MAVAN, short for the Made in America Validator Network. The company originally developed MAVAN to support its own massive ETH position, but says it intends to make the infrastructure available to institutions, custodians and other ecosystem participants.
According to BitMine, its own staking operations recently generated an annualised seven-day yield of around 2.62%. (PR Newswire). A 2% or 3% yield may not sound particularly exciting. Apply it to several billion dollars and suddenly the calculator becomes more interesting.
BitMine Holds More Than Ethereum
Despite ETH dominating the balance sheet, BitMine is not an Ethereum-only portfolio.
Its September 27 disclosure lists:
- 6,001,302 ETH
- 213 Bitcoin
- $672 million in cash and marketable securities
- $180 million stake in Beast Industries
- $115 million stake in Eightco Holdings
BitMine valued its combined crypto assets, cash, marketable securities and other investments at approximately $17.2 billion. But Ethereum is clearly the centre of the strategy.
Is BitMine the Largest Corporate Ethereum Holder?
According to available public treasury data, yes. The Block reports that BitMine is currently the largest publicly disclosed Ethereum treasury holder.
The next-largest corporate Ethereum treasuries are considerably smaller. The Block, citing Strategic ETH Reserve data, puts SharpLink at roughly 889,000 ETH and The Ether Machine at around 497,000 ETH. BitMine has more than 6 million. That puts considerable daylight between first and second place.
BitMine is also described as the world’s second-largest public corporate crypto treasury overall, behind Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy. Strategy follows a similar concept, except its treasury is built around Bitcoin. BitMine is effectively attempting something comparable with Ethereum, although its staking strategy introduces another layer that Bitcoin treasury companies do not have.
This Is Basically the Ethereum Version of the Corporate Bitcoin Treasury
The corporate crypto treasury idea became famous through Strategy. Instead of keeping most corporate reserves in cash and conventional financial assets, Strategy accumulated huge amounts of Bitcoin. Its success inspired a wave of companies attempting similar strategies.
BitMine is one of the most aggressive examples on Ethereum. But there is an important difference. Bitcoin mainly acts as an asset held in treasury. Ethereum can also be staked. That means BitMine can potentially earn additional ETH while holding its treasury. It can also participate directly in Ethereum infrastructure. In theory, BitMine therefore gets both exposure to ETH’s price and income from staking.
In practice, it also gets the risks associated with both.
Owning 5% of Ethereum Is Not Risk-Free
Six million ETH looks impressive when Ether is rising. The arithmetic becomes considerably less friendly when it falls.
If ETH drops by $500, the theoretical value of six million ETH drops by roughly: $3 billion. A $1,000 move would change the position’s value by around: $6 billion.
That works in both directions.
BitMine is therefore making an extremely concentrated bet on the long-term value and relevance of Ethereum. The company also raises capital through public markets to support parts of its strategy, which introduces questions around shareholder dilution, stock valuation and how closely BMNR shares track the underlying value of its assets.
Staking also introduces its own technical, liquidity and operational risks. The strategy could produce enormous gains if Ethereum performs well. It can also produce enormous paper losses if it does not.
Six million ETH does not leave much room for being casually wrong.
Could Holding Nearly 5% of ETH Be a Problem for Ethereum?
This is where the story becomes more interesting than simply counting coins.
Ethereum is supposed to be decentralised. BitMine now controls close to 5% of the entire ETH supply, and more than five million of those tokens are being staked. That does not give BitMine control of Ethereum. It is nowhere close to the amount required to independently dictate network consensus. But large concentrations of ETH among companies, exchanges, staking providers and other institutions naturally raise questions about decentralisation.
BitMine takes the opposite view. The company argues that staking its ETH contributes to Ethereum’s security and that its investments can strengthen the wider ecosystem. That is BitMine’s position.
Whether Ethereum users are comfortable with individual corporate treasuries eventually holding increasingly large percentages of ETH is a broader debate that is likely to become more important if the trend continues.
BitMine Is Almost at Its Target. What Happens Next?
This may become the more interesting question.
BitMine is now roughly 98% of the way toward its original 5% target. If it reaches 5%, does the company stop buying? Does it maintain the position? Does “Alchemy of 5%” eventually become “Alchemy of 6%”? For now, BitMine has not announced a higher supply target.
Lee has previously indicated that the company’s buying pace could slow as it approached 5%. That appears to be happening. According to Unchained, the latest 17,362 ETH addition was BitMine’s smallest weekly purchase since its August 17 update. But smaller is relative.
At current prices, we are still talking about tens of millions of dollars of Ether in a week.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much Ethereum does BitMine own?
BitMine reported 6,001,302 ETH as of September 27, 2026. The company says this represents approximately 4.9% of Ethereum’s 122.1 million ETH supply. (BitMine announcement)
How much is BitMine’s Ethereum worth?
At the $2,698 ETH reference price used in BitMine’s September 27 disclosure, its six-million-ETH position was worth approximately $16.2 billion. The value changes continuously with the price of Ether.
Who is Tom Lee?
Thomas “Tom” Lee is the chairman of BitMine and co-founder and Head of Research at Fundstrat. He became BitMine chairman when the company announced its Ethereum treasury strategy in June 2025. (SEC filing)
What is BitMine’s Alchemy of 5%?
The Alchemy of 5% is BitMine’s stated strategy of accumulating approximately 5% of Ethereum’s total supply. With 6,001,302 ETH, the company says it is roughly 98% of the way toward that target.
How much ETH does BitMine have staked?
BitMine reported 5,067,309 ETH staked as of September 27, representing about 84% of its total Ether holdings.
Did BitMine spend $47 million on its latest ETH purchase?
Not necessarily. BitMine added 17,362 ETH during the latest reporting week. Those coins were worth roughly $46 million to $47 million at market prices around the reporting date, but the company did not disclose its actual average purchase price. (The Block)
Is BitMine the largest Ethereum treasury company?
Available public treasury data cited by The Block currently places BitMine as the largest publicly disclosed corporate Ethereum treasury holder, considerably ahead of other listed ETH treasury companies.
