Bitmine, the corporate world's biggest Ethereum holder, filed this week for a public offering of 3 million shares of 9.50% Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock under the ticker BMNP on the New York Stock Exchange. The filing — which drops a rare look inside the company's balance sheet — reveals Bitmine owns 5.54 million ETH, or 4.59% of the entire supply, and stakes 85% of those coins through a network that yields 2.99% over seven days. Annualized staking revenue is already pegged at $230 million, with the company saying it could hit $270 million as the operation scales.
What the filing shows
Bitmine's total holdings come to $9.6 billion, per the prospectus. That includes $247 million in cash, $180 million in private firm Beast Industries, and $88 million in Eightco Holdings. But the centerpiece is the Ethereum position. Staked coins are generating steady income — the kind of recurring yield that makes a preferred stock offering plausible to income-focused investors. The perpetual preferred shares carry a 9.50% dividend rate, meaning Bitmine is effectively borrowing at that cost while earning roughly 3% on its staked ETH. The spread is tight, but the company appears to be betting on capital appreciation of its core asset more than the coupon arbitrage.
The 'crypto spring' thesis
Chairman Tom Lee didn't mince words in the filing's business overview. He described the current market environment as early-stage “crypto spring” and pointed to improving AI systems as a fresh demand driver for Ethereum. The logic: more AI agents and smart contracts running on Ethereum mean more gas fees and more staking demand. It's a bullish call that borrows from the narrative that blockchains are becoming the settlement layer for machine-to-machine payments. Lee isn't known for understatement — he's the same figure who's pushed Bitmine to accumulate through multiple drawdowns.
How Bitmine stacks up against Strategy
Bitmine now calls itself the second-largest corporate treasury in the world behind MicroStrategy (now led by Michael Saylor). Strategy holds 845,256 BTC at an average cost of $75,680, and notably sold a portion of its bitcoin stash for the first time since 2022 — a move that rippled through markets last month. Bitmine, by contrast, hasn't trimmed its Ethereum. It's staked 4.72 million ETH of its 5.54 million, locking up the majority for the long haul. The two firms represent opposite bets on the two largest crypto assets, but both rely on capital markets to fund accumulation. Bitmine's preferred stock offering is the latest example.
What comes next
The NYSE listing for BMNP is pending SEC review. If approved, the perpetual preferred shares will trade alongside Bitmine's common stock, giving institutional investors a dividend-paying vehicle tied to the company's staking revenue. The timing is notable: just as Strategy offloaded some bitcoin for the first time in four years, Bitmine is doubling down on Ethereum — and asking the public markets to back its conviction.
