Tom Lee's Bitmine Buys $169M $ETH in One Week

Tom Lee's Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) added 71,524 ETH to its balance sheet over the past week, a haul worth $169.15 million according to Arkham Intelligence on-chain data.

It is the firm's biggest single-week buy since December 2025, and the fourth straight week of accelerated accumulation by the largest corporate Ether treasury on the planet.

How much ETH does Bitmine now hold?

As of April 12, 2026, Bitmine holds 4,874,858 ETH. That stash is worth around $10.7 billion with ETH trading near $2,200, and it represents about 4.04% of the 120.7 million ETH in circulation.

The company is now 81% of the way to what chairman Tom Lee (@fundstrat) calls the "Alchemy of 5%", the internal target of owning 5% of all circulating Ether. Hitting that mark would require roughly 6.035 million ETH in total.

Total crypto plus cash holdings sit at $11.8 billion. Alongside the ETH pile, Bitmine reports 198 BTC, $719 million in cash, a $200 million stake in MrBeast's Beast Industries, and an $85 million position in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS).

Why is Tom Lee buying so aggressively?

Lee is framing the current market as the tail end of a cooling phase, not the start of a deeper drawdown.

"Bitmine has maintained the increased pace of ETH buys in each of the past four weeks, as our base case is ETH is in the final stages of the mini-crypto winter," Lee said in the company update.

He also doubled down on the macro thesis, pointing to ETH's performance since the start of the Iran conflict seven weeks ago. By his numbers, ETH has gained around 17% over that stretch, outperforming the S&P 500 by 1,830 basis points and beating gold by 2,743 basis points. Lee called ETH "the wartime store of value" and cited two structural drivers: Wall Street tokenization and agentic AI systems that need neutral, public blockchains.

How much is Bitmine making from staking?

Staking is no longer a side note for BMNR. It is a revenue line.

Bitmine has 3,334,637 ETH staked, about 68% of its holdings and worth roughly $7.4 billion. That position runs through MAVAN, the Made in America Validator Network, which the firm launched late last month as an institutional-grade staking platform.

Current annualized staking revenue sits at $212 million based on a 7-day yield of 2.89%, which edges out the Composite Ethereum Staking Rate of 2.73%. Lee says that number scales to roughly $310 million once the full treasury is deployed through MAVAN and its partners.

No other entity in the world has more ETH staked.

What does this mean for BMNR stock?

Bitmine uplisted from NYSE American to the main New York Stock Exchange board on April 9, still trading under the BMNR ticker. Average daily dollar volume runs around $747 million, ranking it 117th among all U.S.-listed stocks.

The company also expanded its share buyback authorization from $1 billion to $4 billion, one of the ten largest repurchase programs approved in 2026. The investor roster includes Cathie Wood's ARK Invest, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Kraken, Digital Currency Group, Galaxy Digital, and Lee himself.

BMNR is extending the move on Tuesday, trading around $22.55 in the morning session, up 4.81% on the day. Shares are still well off their July 2025 peak near $143, consistent with the broader crypto correction.

The bigger picture

Bitmine (@BitMNR) is running the MicroStrategy playbook with one key twist: yield. Where Michael Saylor's firm simply stacks $BTC, Bitmine stacks $ETH and stakes it, turning the treasury into a cash-flowing validator operation. It now sits as the second-largest crypto treasury overall, trailing only Strategy's Bitcoin position.

With 81% of the "Alchemy of 5%" target hit in just nine months, the question is no longer whether Bitmine can get there. It is what happens to ETH supply dynamics when a single public company locks up one coin in every twenty.

Sources:

• Benzinga — Detailed breakdown of BMNR holdings, 4.04% supply share, MAVAN staking revenue projections, and "Alchemy of 5%" target.
• CoinGape — Broke out Bitmine's $719M cash, Beast Industries, and Eightco positions.
• Crypto Briefing — Confirmed the $4B buyback authorization, April 9 NYSE uplisting, and institutional investor roster.
• Crypto Times — Context on ETH price range near $2,190 and comparison to other public company ETH treasuries.