Bitmine Builds Ethereum Position to 5.18 Million Tokens Worth $13.1 Billion
Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) has grown its Ethereum (ETH) position to 5.18 million tokens, equivalent to 4.29% of the entire ETH supply and valued at $13.1 billion at the time of the company’s latest disclosure. The accumulation pace has accelerated through April and early May 2026, with Bitmine adding 157,344 ETH in a single staking and acquisition move worth approximately $372 million.
No publicly listed company holds a larger share of Ethereum’s circulating supply.
How the Position Grew
A PR Newswire release published May 5 contains the full breakdown of Bitmine’s cryptocurrency and cash holdings as of that date. The 5.18 million ETH figure includes tokens held directly and staked through the Ethereum validator network.
Staking, in which token holders lock up ETH to participate in transaction validation and earn protocol-level rewards, generates annual yields that the company has cited as a key rationale for choosing Ethereum over other treasury assets.
Bitmine has deployed a treasury strategy that mirrors the approach popularized by Strategy with Bitcoin. The firm raises capital through equity and debt markets, converts the proceeds into ETH, and then stakes a portion to generate yield rather than holding the entire position as a passive reserve.
This structure is materially different from simply buying and holding ETH, because staked tokens are subject to a withdrawal queue and cannot be liquidated immediately during market stress.
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee said publicly in May 2026 that he views the cryptocurrency markets as having entered a spring recovery phase, a comment that aligned with Bitmine’s acceleration of purchases. Lee’s remarks did not specifically address Bitmine’s strategy.
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Background
Bitmine Immersion Technologies began as a bitcoin mining company, using liquid immersion cooling technology to improve the energy efficiency of mining rigs.
The company pivoted toward Ethereum accumulation in late 2025 after Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake, the consensus mechanism in which validators lock up the native token rather than expending computational power, eliminated the possibility of mining ETH directly.
The strategic shift was described internally as a response to two converging factors. First, Ethereum’s staking yield offered a return on idle capital that bitcoin mining cannot replicate without ongoing energy expenditure.
Second, the company’s board concluded that institutional demand for ETH was structurally underdeveloped relative to the institutional bitcoin market, creating an opportunity to build a position before rival corporations entered. Bitmine’s ETH accumulation drew early attention in early 2026 when its holdings crossed the 4 million token threshold.
The pace of purchasing stepped up in April as ETH prices dipped toward $2,200 before recovering to roughly $2,530 by early May.
Ethereum’s total supply stands near 120.5 million tokens, a figure that shifts modestly as new ETH is issued to validators and as the network burns fees through a mechanism introduced in the August 2021 London upgrade. At 5.18 million tokens, Bitmine’s position represents a concentration that no institutional holder has previously disclosed in the Ethereum ecosystem.
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Staking Mechanics and Liquidity Risk
The staking component of Bitmine’s position introduces a risk that pure-holding strategies avoid.
Ethereum validators who wish to unstake must join a withdrawal queue, the length of which depends on overall network exit demand. In periods of market stress when many validators attempt to exit simultaneously, withdrawal times can stretch from days to weeks.
Bitmine has not publicly disclosed what fraction of its 5.18 million ETH is actively staked versus held in liquid wallets.
That split matters for any scenario in which the company needs to sell quickly, whether to meet debt obligations or respond to a board decision. Staking rewards running near 3% to 4% annually soften the opportunity cost of illiquidity but do not eliminate it.
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What the Market Is Watching
Ethereum traded near $2,530 in early May 2026, up from April lows but still roughly 45% below its all-time high set in late 2021.
The ETH-to-BTC ratio, a common measure of Ethereum’s relative strength, has edged upward through April as institutions have rotated some allocations toward ETH. Bitmine’s accumulation adds a concentrated institutional buyer to a market that has been increasingly dominated by spot ETF flows since the launch of US Ethereum ETFs in mid-2024.
The next data point to watch is Bitmine’s next quarterly disclosure, which will confirm whether the company continued purchasing through May or paused after the latest batch.
Any Ethereum price move above $3,000 would take the total position value beyond $15.5 billion, at which point Bitmine’s ETH holding would exceed the market capitalization of many mid-large US financial firms.
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