Bitmine buys 15,112 ether, its smallest weekly purchase in seven weeks

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), the U.S.-listed company, bought another 15,112 ether over the past week, it said on Oct. 5 in a press release and a Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company held 6,016,414 ETH as of 6:30 p.m. ET on Oct. 4. The weekly purchase was its smallest in seven weeks, since mid-August.

At the ether price the company used ($2,726, per Coinbase), the latest purchase was worth about $41.2 million. Bitmine said its holdings equal 4.9% of ether's total supply of 122.1 million and that it is 99% of the way to its "Alchemy of 5%" goal of acquiring 5% of the supply. Based on the supply figure the company cited, about 88,000 ETH remain to reach 5%.

From 100,000 ETH a week to 15,000

Bitmine has said it has bought ETH every week since launching its ether treasury strategy on June 30, 2025. The size of those purchases, however, has varied widely. In three updates from April 20 to May 4 this year, it bought more than 100,000 ETH a week, and in its June 8 update it reported 126,971 ETH.

In recent updates, weekly purchases fell from 53,501 ETH on Aug. 31 to 28,086 on Sept. 8, then held in the 27,000 to 28,000 range at 27,180 on Sept. 14 and 27,562 on Sept. 21. They then declined for a second straight week, to 17,362 on Sept. 28 and 15,112 on Oct. 5. The last time Bitmine reported a smaller purchase was 9,926 ETH in its Aug. 17 update.

Over the same stretch, cash and marketable securities fell from $714 million in the Sept. 21 update to $672 million on Sept. 28 and $643 million this week. The company also holds 214 bitcoin, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries and a $117 million stake in Nasdaq-listed Eightco Holdings (ORBS). It put its combined holdings at $17.4 billion.

Staked ETH unchanged for two months

Staking means locking up ether with the network to help validate transactions in exchange for rewards. Bitmine reported 5,067,309 staked ETH, worth $13.8 billion at the price in the latest filing. That figure has not changed in nine straight updates, from Aug. 10 through this week. In its Aug. 3 update it was 4,917,189.

Because holdings kept growing in the meantime, about 949,000 ETH are now not staked. Staked ether makes up 84% of total holdings. The company said its own staking operations generated a 7-day annualized yield of 2.63% and that annualized staking revenues are currently projected at $363 million. Part of its ether is staked on MAVAN (Made in America VAlidator Network), its institutional staking platform. If all of its ETH were staked, the projected reward would be $431 million a year, according to the company.

21 million shares bought back this year

In the release, Bitmine Chairman Thomas "Tom" Lee highlighted that the company's shares had fallen less than ether. "In the first 9 months of 2026, ETH declined 10% while BMNR was down by 3%," Lee said. "We accomplished this via many actions including executing the largest ever crypto treasury equity buyback, acquiring 21 million shares in 2026 alone." The company said it will release its October Chairman's Message this week under the title "Crypto bull underway — this cycle likely the largest."

Lee is scheduled to deliver the keynote at Token2049 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore at 10 a.m. local time on Oct. 7 (11 a.m. KST). Bitmine also filed with the SEC on Sept. 30 the presentation he gave last week at Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) in Seoul.

Korean price 0.58% above global markets

As of 8:34 p.m. KST on Oct. 6, ether traded at about $2,716 on Binance, down 0.08% from 24 hours earlier. At the same time it changed hands at 3,669,000 won on both Upbit and Bithumb in their Korean won markets. Binance's price converted to won by Coinyong's price feed was about 3,648,000 won, putting the kimchi premium (the gap between prices on Korean exchanges and global markets) at about 0.58% on Upbit. The funding rate on Binance's ether perpetual futures was 0.0003%, close to zero.