Bitmine has increased its Ethereum holdings by 8,573 ETH to 6.06 million ETH — a position equal to nearly 5% of the entire Ether supply and the largest Ether reserve held by any digital asset treasury company. Chairman Tom Lee views the muted market reaction to the Binance hack in late October as constructive.

Bitmine's Ether reserve strategy

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) is a publicly listed company that holds Ether as a reserve asset on its own balance sheet. It follows the model of a Digital Asset Treasury Company, an approach pioneered by Strategy, which currently runs the same playbook with 848,517 bitcoin. Among companies with an Ether reserve, Bitmine is the largest holder. The firm stakes most of its holdings, thereby helping to secure the Ethereum network while earning rewards in return.

Tom Lee chairs Bitmine's board and is the founder of Fundstrat. The company's Ether strategy began in late June 2025. Since then, Bitmine has reported its holdings every week, along with its progress toward a self-imposed target of 5% of the Ether supply.

The latest reporting week also encompassed the Binance hack, in which attackers stole around USD 6.3 billion. At Bitmine's reference price of USD 2,261 per ETH, the Ether holdings are worth roughly USD 13.7 billion, while total holdings come to about USD 14.5 billion. At the same reference price, the weekly purchase equals around USD 19 million — about 0.14% of the Ether holdings.

Bitmine nears 5% of the Ethereum supply

With the latest purchase, holdings grew from 6,051,933 to 6,060,506 ETH. Measured against a total supply of 122.2 million ETH, that equals about 4.96%, meaning the company holds almost one in every twenty Ether in existence. In its weekly announcement, Bitmine rounds the share down to 4.9% and refers to the target as the "Alchemy of 5%". Just under 50,000 ETH remain to reach the 5% mark on paper, with about 99% of the way covered.

By comparison, the weekly purchase was small. In the previous week, the company had bought 10,452 ETH — around 22% more than in the latest week.

Besides Ether, the roughly USD 14.5 billion in holdings as of early November includes several smaller positions. These include 216 bitcoin and USD 498 million in cash and securities. Bitmine also holds a position in Beast Industries worth USD 180 million and a stake in Eightco Holdings worth USD 82 million. Ether alone accounts for about USD 13.7 billion, or just under 95% of total holdings. Consequently, the balance sheet depends almost entirely on a single cryptocurrency. Nevertheless, cash and securities amount to roughly 26 times the latest weekly purchase at the reference price.

Why Tom Lee calls the market reaction to the hack constructive

In the Binance hack in late October, attackers drained around USD 6.3 billion from the exchange's wallets, with most of the funds leaving within about 20 minutes. Binance temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals in response. The exchange and blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs describe the incident as the largest crypto theft ever. TRM Labs attributed the attack with high confidence to the North Korean group TraderTraitor. The FBI initially confirmed only that it was aware of the incident, and later attributed the attack to North Korea. The same group is seen as the culprit behind the Bybit hack of February 2025, which cost USD 1.5 billion; the damage at Binance is more than four times as large.

Lee calls the hack "a terrible development." However, he describes the crypto market's "relatively muted" reaction as "very constructive." As evidence, he points out that Ether has lost about 4% since the theft became known. In his view, this shows the industry is "increasingly resilient and more capable of absorbing these nation-state assaults" — an allusion to the attribution to North Korea. The chairman also notes that Binance can cover all customer losses, as the exchange has pledged to use its SAFU emergency fund and company funds to do so.

Finally, Lee reads the attack as the infiltration of a company, not as a failure of a blockchain. That part of his reading matches Binance's account so far. According to a preliminary investigation, the attack began with an engineer's compromised laptop. Through this access, the attackers first reached an internal service and then triggered unauthorized withdrawals. The vulnerability, in other words, lay in the exchange's operational processes.

The case against the bullish reading

Lee, however, does not comment on the hack as a neutral observer. As the largest holder among Ether treasury firms, Bitmine benefits directly from any stabilization of the Ether price. Reading a muted reaction as constructive therefore serves his company and its holdings of around USD 13.7 billion. At the same time, Bitmine itself was a buyer during the week of the hack.

How muted the reaction really was also depends on the measurement window. Depending on the source and timing, the measured Ether price losses differ widely; a daily closing price paints a different picture than the low in the hours after the attack.

What gets overlooked is where the stolen funds are now. Shortly after the attack, Circle reported that it had frozen more than USD 800 million in USDC linked to the incident. As of November 2, 2026, analytics firm Elliptic put the funds in linked addresses at around USD 3.24 billion, consisting mainly of Ether and bitcoin. The FBI has published addresses holding stolen assets and expects further money laundering. Whether and when the attackers will sell the remaining funds remains unclear. Binance's pledge protects the exchange's customers, although it does nothing to change the stolen holdings. The exchange also plans to publish an updated statement of customer reserves only after repairs are complete; until then, there is no complete account of the incident.

Bitmine is buying more slowly than in September

In mid-August 2026, Bitmine held around 5.82 million ETH. In the week to early September, it added 28,086 ETH, lifting holdings to 5.93 million ETH. Within about three weeks, holdings thus grew by roughly 110,000 ETH. The pace of buying has slowed noticeably since, though. From late September to mid-October, the company acquired between 12,532 and 17,362 ETH per week. In the previous week, it bought 10,452 ETH, and at 8,573 ETH, the current purchase is lower still. At this pace, Bitmine would need about six more weeks on paper to acquire the remaining nearly 50,000 ETH.

The income side, meanwhile, relies on staking. In staking, Bitmine locks up Ether as collateral to validate transactions on the network. Through MAVAN, the company has staked 5,227,037 ETH, about 86% of its holdings. That leaves only around 833,000 ETH unstaked.

For the staked holdings, Bitmine puts annualized staking revenue at around USD 358 million. However, the figure is a projection rather than realized income, and its size depends on the network yield and the Ether price. Even so, as additional purchases shrink, the running income carries more weight.

Source: Crypto Valley Journal