Bitmine's ether holdings top 6 million, or 4.9% of supply

U.S.-listed Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) now holds more than 6 million ether (ETH). The company said in its weekly press release on Sept. 28 that it held 6,001,302 ETH as of 3 p.m. ET on Sept. 27, up 17,362 ETH from 5,983,940 ETH a week earlier.

Bitmine, chaired by Wall Street strategist Tom Lee, is an "Ethereum treasury" company that accumulates ether as a corporate asset. The company calls its goal of owning 5% of ether's total supply the "Alchemy of 5%." Based on the supply of 122.1 million ETH cited in the release, 5% equals 6,105,000 ETH, leaving about 103,700 ETH to go. The company said it is 98% of the way to its goal.

Buying every week for 15 months

Bitmine began accumulating ether on June 30, 2025, and the company said it has bought ether every week since then. Recent weekly releases show the amount purchased has varied from week to week. In its release as of June 14, three months ago, it had bought 76,881 ETH over the week, bringing holdings to 5,620,754 ETH, with a reference price of $1,718 per ETH. In September, it bought 27,180 ETH in the week to Sept. 13 and 27,562 ETH in the week to Sept. 20. This week it bought 17,362 ETH.

Over the same period, its share of supply rose from 4.66% (as of June 14, based on a supply of 120.7 million ETH) to 4.9%. The company said it is the world's largest treasury company by ether holdings and the second-largest listed company by crypto holdings, behind Strategy, which holds about 845,080 bitcoin. Bitmine's shares were added to the Russell 1000, an index of large-cap U.S. stocks, on June 26 this year.

"Bitmine's total ETH holdings now exceed 6 million. This is a tremendous achievement, accumulating this total in under 15 months."

Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine

What makes up the $17.2 billion

The $17.2 billion the company highlights is not the value of its ether alone. The breakdown given in the release is as follows.

• 6,001,302 ETH: valued at the Coinbase price of $2,698 per ETH, which works out to about $16.2 billion.
• 213 bitcoin: one more than the 212 BTC in the previous week's release.
• Cash and marketable securities of $672 million: down from $714 million a week earlier.
• So-called "moonshot" equity stakes: $180 million in Beast Industries and $115 million in Nasdaq-listed Eightco Holdings.

The total in the previous week's release was $17.1 billion, when the reference ether price was $2,688. Bitmine's stock has traded an average daily dollar volume of $1.1 billion over the last five trading days, ranking 94th among 5,704 U.S.-listed stocks, the company said.

84% of holdings are staked on the network

Staking means committing coins to validate a blockchain in exchange for rewards, similar to interest. Bitmine has 5,067,309 ETH staked, or 84% of its total holdings. The figure is unchanged from the previous week's release (as of Sept. 20). The 7-day annualized yield is 2.62%, and the company estimates annual staking revenue at about $358 million at the current scale. If all of its holdings were staked, that figure would be $424 million a year, the company said.

Part of Bitmine's staked ether is held with MAVAN (Made in America VAlidator Network), the institutional staking platform the company launched this year. MAVAN was originally built for the company's own holdings, but has since expanded to serve other institutional investors and custodians, the company said.

Tom Lee takes the stage in Seoul on Sept. 30

Lee is scheduled to deliver a 25-minute keynote at Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2026 at the Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul at 11:20 a.m. KST on Sept. 30. "In our view, institutions are still underweight crypto and we expect them to be adding to their exposure in the final months of 2026," he said in the release.

Korean prices trade 0.7% below global markets

On Binance, ETH opened at $2,688 on Sept. 28 (UTC) and closed in the same price range. At 11:35 p.m. KST on Sept. 29, it traded at $2,714, up 1.4% from 24 hours earlier. At the same time, ETH traded at 3,665,000 won on the Korean won market of Upbit, a South Korean exchange (up 0.4% from the previous close), and at 3,668,000 won on Bithumb. Upbit's price was about 0.7% below the Binance price converted into won by Coinyong (about 3,689,000 won), meaning Korean prices were at a discount to overseas prices, a so-called reverse kimchi premium (the kimchi premium being the gap between prices on Korean exchanges and global markets).