Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) said on October 19, 2026 that it holds 6,041,481 ETH, or 4.9% of Ethereum’s 122.1 million token supply. The Norwalk, Connecticut, treasury company valued its crypto, cash and “moonshot” holdings at $15.1 billion.
The Brief
- Bitmine bought 12,535 ETH over the past week and says it has bought ETH every week since June 30, 2025.
- Bitmine has staked 5,067,309 ETH worth $12 billion, which Chairman Tom Lee called more than any other entity.
- Lee tied weaker investor risk appetite to AI funding and safety worries, US-Iran war activity, midterm nerves and rising bond yields.
- The company says it is 99% of the way to its “Alchemy of 5%” goal of owning 5% of all ETH.
Lee links crypto pressure to Korea and Taiwan chip selloffs
Lee’s explanation centers on who owns crypto. The AI selloff he described hit semiconductor and memory stocks first. It then spread to Korean and Taiwanese markets, which those sectors dominate.
Lee said in the announcement filed with the SEC :
He added that falling prices paired with resilient fundamentals have historically offered attractive risk/reward. He also pointed to crypto’s exposure to modernizing financial rails and to agentic AI. The filing labels these views as forward-looking statements.
The AI link also runs through Bitmine’s own book. The company holds a $74 million stake in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS). Bitmine describes Eightco as one of the only listed equities offering indirect exposure to OpenAI.
A $180 million stake in Beast Industries rounds out the “moonshots” bucket. So the AI sentiment Lee cites as a drag on crypto also touches Bitmine’s equity holdings directly.
JUST IN: Tom Lee’s ‘BitMine’ buys $30M worth of Ethereum
— Kalshi Crypto (@Kalshi_Crypto) October 19, 2026
Staking covers 84% of the ETH stack
Beyond ETH, the snapshot taken at 3:00 p.m. ET on October 18 included these positions, according to the filing:
- 215 BTC
- $582 million in total cash and marketable securities
- The Beast Industries and Eightco stakes
- ETH marked at $2,365 per token, using Coinbase pricing
MAVAN, the Made in America Validator Network, launched earlier in 2026 to stake Bitmine’s own treasury. It now also serves institutional investors, custodians and ecosystem partners. Bitmine runs part of its ETH on MAVAN and the rest with outside staking partners.
A previous Bitmine treasury update offers a baseline for the week-over-week change.
Lee put annualized staking revenue at $309 million on 5.1 million staked ETH. At full staking, he projected $369 million a year, based on a 2.58% seven-day BMNR yield.
Both figures are projections. The filing’s risk factors warn that actual yields may differ materially, including if the ETH is not fully staked. They also list slashing events among staking risks.
What’s Missing?
The release leaves several numbers out. What did the 12,535 ETH cost, and how was the purchase funded? When will the unstaked ETH be deployed? How much projected revenue flows through MAVAN versus outside partners?
Bitmine called itself the largest Ethereum treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury overall. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) tops the list of bitcoin treasury companies. Strategy reportedly holds 848,250 BTC valued at about $74 billion.
Bitmine joined the Russell 1000 large-cap index in June 2026. Its Series A Preferred Stock trades on the NYSE as BMNP. Management also compared the GENIUS Act and the SEC’s Project Crypto to the 1971 end of Bretton Woods.
The update reads as a staking story as much as a buying one. At 99% of its target, Bitmine has little supply left to add before it reaches 5%. Income from staked ETH and MAVAN’s outside clients now carries more of the case.
Shareholders can check each figure against the SEC exhibit, for the share-price backdrop. The headline total rests on one Coinbase price snapshot from the day before the announcement. It moves with ETH from the next trade.
