BitMine Now Holds 4.7% of All Ether, Because 4.6% Was Just a Warm-Up 🐋

Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies expanded its holdings to 4.7% of the circulating supply last week, adding 52,203 ETH worth roughly $92 million to its balance sheet. The company now holds 5,672,956 ETH valued around $10 billion, along with 205 Bitcoin worth approximately $13.3 million. "The best years for crypto remain ahead, in our view," Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement, adding, "Tokenization and the rapid progress in AI are expected to drive exponential demand growth for blockchain and decentralized crypto." (Lee is an investor in Dastan, Decrypt's parent company.)

The latest acquisition coincided with the start of trading for the firm's dividend-paying preferred equity offering, BMNP, on the New York Stock Exchange last week. After opening at $85 per share, BMNP traded at $88.32 on Monday, up roughly 1.7% in early trading. BitMine priced and completed the offering earlier this month, raising around $274 million in proceeds to acquire more Ethereum and build out its staking infrastructure. Staking involves pledging assets to a blockchain network—in this case, Ethereum—to help validate transactions and secure the network, with users receiving newly minted ETH as rewards ranging between 1.7% and 3.2% APY.

The preferred equity offering follows the model of Bitcoin-focused firm Strategy, which uses its own dividend-paying preferred equity offering, STRC, to generate cash for additional Bitcoin purchases. Strategy's STRC has drawn scrutiny recently, falling more than 10% from its par value of $100 per share amid investor skepticism about how the firm will continue funding dividend payments. Unlike Strategy, BitMine may fund its dividend payments through its ETH staking income. The firm currently stakes more than 4.7 million ETH, or around 83% of its total holdings, via its Made in America Validator Network. When staking of its full treasury is complete, it projects approximately $268 million in revenue on an annualized basis, according to Lee.

BitMine common stock, trading as BMNR, was up 0.4% on Monday at $16.22, while Ethereum rose 1.6% over the prior 24 hours to around $1,752. Both remain well below recent highs, with BMNR nearly 90% off its 52-week high of $161 and ETH down 64% from its August peak of $4,946. Bitcoin, meanwhile, changed hands around $64,700 on Monday, up 0.8% on the day but down about 13% over the past month and roughly 50% below the record of $126,080 set in October, according to CoinGecko data. Crypto proved "more resilient than anticipated" in the face of new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's hawkish debut, CoinShares head of research James Butterfill wrote in a Monday note.