BitMine’s Ethereum buying spree could end in six weeks

BitMine Immersion Technologies Chairman Tom Lee said the company will stop accumulating Ethereum once its holdings reach 5% of the cryptocurrency’s supply, capping the strategy that made it ETH’s largest corporate holder.

Speaking at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Lee said BitMine was already close to that limit and would not pursue an open-ended accumulation campaign. He said:

“We only need to get another 100,000 ETH to get to 5%.”

Notably, the company is actually slightly closer than Lee’s rounded estimate suggests. BitMine held 6,016,414 ETH as of Oct. 4, equal to about 4.9% of the 122.1 million ETH supply cited in its latest disclosure.

This means BitMine would need roughly 88,586 ETH to reach 5% of the 122.1 million ETH supply used in its calculations.

At an illustrative ETH price of $2,500, acquiring the remainder could cost roughly $221 million. BitMine reported $643 million in cash and marketable securities, giving it enough disclosed liquidity to cover the gap while retaining most of that liquidity.

BitMine could reach its 5% ceiling within weeks

BitMine’s latest official purchase rate puts Lee’s 5% ceiling within reach before the end of the year, even if the company slows its accumulation.

The company added 15,112 ETH in the week through Oct. 4, its latest disclosed weekly purchase. At that pace, acquiring the remaining 88,586 ETH would take about 5.9 weeks, putting the threshold within reach around mid-November.

A faster buying program would shorten the timeline. If BitMine increased purchases to 20,000 ETH per week, it could close the gap in roughly 4.4 weeks. At a slower rate of 10,000 ETH per week, the process would take about 8.9 weeks, pushing the milestone into early December.

Those scenarios are projections rather than company guidance. BitMine has not committed to a fixed weekly purchase schedule, and changes in Ethereum’s total supply could alter the number of tokens corresponding to a 5% stake.

Meanwhile, there are also signs that BitMine may have already made further progress beyond its latest disclosure.

On Oct. 7, blockchain analysis platform Lookonchain reported that the company appeared to acquire another 12,500 ETH worth $33.65 million through BitGo. BitMine has not yet incorporated that transaction into an official holdings update, so it is excluded from the projections above.

If confirmed as an additional purchase, however, it would reduce the remaining gap to about 76,086 ETH, meaning the company could reach Lee’s ceiling sooner than the timetable implied by its latest reported holdings.

That leaves BitMine approaching a point where the mechanics of its Ethereum strategy will have to change. Once purchases are constrained by the 5% limit, further growth in its ETH position would increasingly come from staking rewards rather than continued market accumulation.

ETH staking takes over from accumulation

BitMine is already positioning staking as a larger source of returns from its Ethereum treasury.

The company had about 5.07 million ETH staked as of Oct. 4, equivalent to roughly 84% of its holdings, and estimated that position could generate about $363 million in annualized revenue.

BitMine projects that staking its entire ETH balance could lift annualized revenue to roughly $431 million, based on a 2.63% annualized yield. That would make staking income increasingly important once the company can no longer expand its treasury through purchases.

But earning ETH also complicates Lee’s hard cap.

Staking rewards continuously add tokens to BitMine’s balance sheet. Once its holdings approach 5% of Ethereum supply, those rewards could push the company beyond the threshold even without another open-market purchase.

How BitMine intends to manage that excess has not been fully established. It could leave less room below the ceiling for purchases, change how it handles staking rewards, or dispose of some ETH if needed to stay below the limit.

The target itself will also move with Ethereum’s supply. A contraction would lower the number of ETH BitMine can hold while staying below 5%, while an increase would create additional capacity.

That leaves BitMine with a different capital-management challenge as the accumulation phase winds down. The company has spent more than a year focused on adding ETH; maintaining Lee’s ceiling could eventually require it to manage the tokens its existing treasury produces.