Bitmine adds 12,535 ETH, now 99% of the way to its 5% goal

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest corporate holder of ether, bought another 12,535 ETH worth about $30 million last week, taking its treasury to 6,041,481 ETH. That is about 4.9% of Ethereum's 122.1 million token supply, and the company says it is now 99% of the way to its goal of owning 5% of the network, Decrypt reports.

The numbers

• Latest purchase: 12,535 ETH, about $30 million.
• ETH held: 6,041,481, worth roughly $14.3 billion at the company's reference price of $2,365 per coin.
• Staked: 5,067,309 ETH, about 84% of the stack, through its MAVAN platform, with projected annualised revenue of about $309 million.
• Total holdings: $15.1 billion as of Oct. 18, including 215 BTC, $582 million in cash and marketable securities, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries and a $74 million position in Eightco Holdings.

How close is the finish line?

Bitmine calls its target the "Alchemy of 5%". Using the supply figure Bitmine cites, 5% would be about 6.1 million ETH, so the gap is roughly 64,000 ETH by our arithmetic. The NYSE-listed company has bought ether every week since it launched the strategy on June 30, 2025, and chairman Tom Lee has said buying will stop once the 5% threshold is reached. Because much of the stack was bought at higher prices last year, the position is currently below its cost on paper.

Why Lee says the market is weak

Lee linked the recent slide in crypto to a broad pullback in risk appetite: worries over AI funding and model safety, rising US-Iran tensions, nerves ahead of the US midterm elections and higher global bond yields. He also pointed to sell-offs in AI and chip stocks in South Korea and Taiwan, where many investors also hold crypto, and described the dip as an attractive risk-reward entry point. That is his view, not a forecast we endorse.

Context

Bitmine is the second-largest crypto treasury company overall, behind Strategy, which reported another 267 BTC on Monday. New to the asset? Our explainers on what Ethereum is and on proof of stake cover how staking yields like Bitmine's are earned.