Bitmine Immersion Technologies scooped up another 101,745 Ether last week, spending over $240 million to push its total holdings past 5.18 million tokens. The purchase included 10,000 ETH bought directly from the Ethereum Foundation in an OTC deal at an average price of $2,292 per coin. That brings Bitmine’s cumulative position to 5,180,131 ETH — roughly 4.29% of Ethereum’s total circulating supply of 120.7 million coins.
The latest buy
This isn’t a one-off. Bitmine has been stacking ETH for months, and it’s now 86% of the way toward its stated goal of owning 5% of all Ethereum in existence — what the firm calls the 'Alchemy of 5%.' At current prices, the latest tranche cost around $240 million, though the actual outlay was lower because of the OTC discount. The exchange didn’t disclose the counterparty beyond the Ethereum Foundation piece.
Why Bitmine is stacking so much ETH
Chairman Thomas 'Tom' Lee says a new cycle is brewing. 'Crypto Spring, in our view, has commenced,' he declared. Lee pointed to two long-term drivers: Wall Street’s push to tokenize financial assets, and agentic AI systems that need public blockchains for payments and verification. In that world, owning a meaningful chunk of the settlement layer is a bet on infrastructure demand.
Staking revenues and institutional backing
Bitmine isn’t just hoarding. As of May 3, it had staked 4,362,757 ETH — more than 84% of its total stash — through its MAVAN staking platform. Annualized staking revenues currently run at $297 million, with projected annual rewards of $352 million based on a 2.91% seven-day yield rate. That’s real cash flow. The company’s institutional backers include heavyweights: ARK’s Cathie Wood, Founders Fund, Pantera, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, and DCG.
Ethereum itself trades at around $2,336, roughly 52% below its all-time high of $4,946 reached last August. That gap hasn’t slowed Bitmine’s buying. With 86% of the 5% target already in hand, the question now is how quickly the firm can close the remaining 14% — and whether other whales follow suit.
