Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) said it now holds 4.8 million ether ($ETH) worth roughly $10.2 billion at current prices, putting the company within reach of its stated goal of accumulating 5% of the total ether supply.
In a Monday statement, the company also said its shares will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange, uplisted from NYSE American, starting April 9.
Bitmine holds 3.98% of ether’s 120.7 million circulating supply, compared with Strategy’s 3.8% of bitcoin’s 20 million. Both companies have turned treasury accumulation into a stock market narrative, and both are buying aggressively as prices decline.
Bitmine acquired 71,252 $ETH in the past week, its highest pace of purchases since late December, according to Chairman Tom Lee, who framed the buying as a bet that ether is in “the final stages of the mini-crypto winter.”
Total crypto and cash holdings are now $11.4 billion, including $864 million in cash, 198 BTC, and smaller positions in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings.
Bitmine’s model diverges from Strategy when it comes to staking, or depositing tokens to help secure the Ethereum blockchain in exchange for a reward. Of the 4.8 million $ETH held, 3.33 million are staked through Mavan, the company’s institutional-grade validator network that started operating Monday.
That staked position is worth roughly $7.1 billion and generates $196 million in annualized staking revenue at a 2.78% yield, giving Bitmine a recurring income stream that Strategy’s bitcoin treasury does not have.
At full deployment, when all of Bitmine’s $ETH is staked, the company projects $282 million in annual staking rewards.
Lee made a wartime case for ether in the announcement, noting that $ETH has gained 6.8% since the Iran conflict began, outperforming the S&P 500 by 1,130 basis points and gold by 1,840 basis points. “$ETH is the wartime store of value,” Lee said, a framing that would have been difficult to argue six months ago but has data behind it now.
Bitmine is now the 96th most traded stock in the U.S. with average daily volume of $987 million, ranking between Schlumberger and Adobe. The investor base includes ARK Invest, Founders Fund, Pantera, Galaxy Digital, and Kraken.
