Bitmine's Ethereum Holdings Exceed 6 Million, Valued at Approximately $16.1 Billion
CoinDesk reports that Bitmine's latest holdings show the company's Ethereum has surpassed 6 million coins, valued at approximately $16.1 billion. Chairman Tom Lee announced that a bull market is underway and stated that the company is approaching its 5% supply target.
As of September 28, Bitmine updated its holdings to 6,001,302 coins, priced at about $2,698; additionally, it holds 213 Bitcoins, $180 million in Beast Industries, $115 million in Eightco, and $672 million in cash and securities, with total crypto investments amounting to approximately $17.2 billion. The company purchased 17,362 coins that week. The previous week, on September 21, it held 5,983,940 coins, totaling about $17.1 billion, with a purchase of 27,562 coins that week. Since launching its Ethereum treasury strategy on June 30, 2025, it has maintained weekly purchases for less than 15 months.
The 5% target is referred to by the company as the Alchemy of 5%. The circulating supply fluctuates between approximately 120.7 million and 122.1 million coins, with new issuance pushing the target line outward; it may still be about 120,000 coins short near 4.9%, and achieving a full 5% may require around 6.1 million coins. The company once purchased over 100,000 coins weekly but has since slowed down, stating that the original pace would meet the target by mid-July, now revised to complete by 2026. A large number of tokens have been staked, with approximately 5.067 million coins previously disclosed as staked through the MAVAN network, generating an estimated annual staking income of $230 million to $350 million. Lee stated that ultimately all holdings need to be staked to withdraw circulating supply.
Lee set the starting point of this bull market at the end of June, citing reasons including funds shifting from AI stocks back to crypto, tokenization and AI fundamentals, and the end of a four-year cycle. He noted that institutions are still underweight in crypto and expect to increase their positions in the last months of 2026. So far in the third quarter, he reported ETH's outperformance relative to other macro assets at approximately 6,728 basis points; a week ago, the same measure was 6,519 basis points. Since the end of June, ETH's increase compared to the S&P 500 has been reported as approximately 76% versus about 2%.
Bitmine has transitioned from a Bitcoin mining company to an Ethereum treasury and is the second-largest publicly traded digital asset treasury after Strategy. Its code is BMNR, and it also has preferred shares BMNP with a weekly dividend and a coupon of 9.5%, previously included in the Russell 1000. The stock price often trades at a discount to the treasury's net asset value. Purchases primarily occur through over-the-counter channels like Kraken and FalconX, with increased buying during pullbacks. Lee stated that he has observed the synergy and network effects brought by the holdings.
In market mechanics, this publicly traded treasury continuously absorbs spot supply, with the supply narrative driven by weekly reports. The buyers are Bitmine's treasury and named underweight institutions; the sellers are over-the-counter desks and unlocked positions. Funds flow from common stock, preferred stock, and cash into ETH spot and staking. Beneficiaries are the treasury narrative that locks and stakes for income; the pressured parties are circulating supply and equity investors during net asset value discounts. Crossing 6 million turns the 5% from a long-term slogan into a measurable gap, also bringing the question of "when will the largest stable buyer slow down" to the pricing table.
Supplementary data: On June 29, the holdings were 5.7 million coins, with total assets of approximately $9.8 billion, at a reference price of about $1,569. Validators across the network had previously staked over 38 million coins. Lee described holding and staking as a way to turn ETH supply into deflation since June 2025. CoinDesk's $16.1 billion figure differs from the company's $17.2 billion due to pricing points and whether cash and satellite holdings are included.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The 6 million mark is a significant milestone. Lee needed a step that could be highlighted in the title, and CoinDesk provided that. Strategy demonstrated that a treasury can repeatedly finance in the public market using Bitcoin; Bitmine has applied this template to ETH, layering staking to make the balance sheet appear self-generating. As circulating supply increases, the 5% target moves forward, and the company maintains the gap as news through weekly reports, keeping the financing window open. After crossing 6 million, the next step is not a mathematical conclusion, but a narrative shift from "still buying" to "can buy less."
The capital path remains equity for coins. Common stock is volatile, preferred stock pays weekly dividends, and proceeds are used to buy ETH over-the-counter, then locked into validators. Beast and Eightco are satellite holdings, with the main holding being Ethereum. As it approaches 5%, Lee has already hinted at a shift towards staking for liquidity and institutional products, indicating to the market that the next round of sales will be yield pipelines. If institutions increase their positions in the fourth quarter, they will be buying from a thin circulating supply; if not, the weekly buy orders themselves will serve as the final anchor.
The comparable entities remain MicroStrategy and mining companies converting equipment firms into coin treasuries. ETH has protocol inflation and staking rates, allowing the treasury to act as both buyer and staker. The industry phase is the transition of digital asset treasuries from Bitcoin-centric to specialized public chains. The risks are symmetrical: as the largest buyer nears its target, marginal demand may disappear, and discounted stocks will reflect before coin prices.
Structural judgment belongs to capital concentration. The mechanism is that the public market treats equity as leverage, absorbing freely circulating tokens into a few balance sheets, and then withdrawing from the sellable supply through staking. The 6 million mark is a declaration of concentration, while 5% is a self-imposed limit: further purchases would increase governance and regulatory costs. The day the integer is highlighted by the media, the supply narrative completes a repricing.