Bitmine is just one step away from its goal of holding 5% of Ethereum's total supply, and is about to hit the brakes on adding to its position. Behind this shift are both considerations of maintaining the healthy development of the Ethereum ecosystem and, possibly, efforts to ease pressure on its own stock price and adjust capital allocation. When the largest buyer no longer keeps buying aggressively, who can take over and fill the ETH demand gap?
Author: Nancy, PANews
Ethereum's largest buyer, Bitmine, is about to hit the brakes on accumulating. In just over a year, Bitmine is a stone's throw away from its set target of 5% of Ethereum's supply, a goal that was originally a five-year long-term plan.
Even as its paper losses continued to widen, this Ethereum treasury company never stopped hoarding coins, becoming one of the important buying forces supporting ETH. Once Bitmine stops sweeping up coins, who will step up to become the next buying force for ETH?
In just 16 months, BitMine is about to complete the "5% alchemy"
Ethereum's biggest bull, Bitmine, is about to complete the "5% alchemy."
Since launching its ETH reserve strategy in June 2025, Bitmine has been continuously buying ETH almost every week and quickly grew into the world's largest Ethereum treasury company. Now, this layout originally planned to take five years has already entered its final stage ahead of schedule.
Bitmine's official announcement shows that as of October 11, the company held 6,028,946 ETH, accounting for about 4.9% of ETH's total supply (122.1 million), completing about 99% of its 5% holding target.
In other words, Bitmine is only about 77,000 ETH away from its target. If calculated based on its recent weekly accumulation scale of more than 12,000 ETH, the company could reach the target in as soon as six to seven more weeks. This means Bitmine is expected to fulfill its promised target ahead of schedule about 16 months after launch.
From the pace of accumulation, Bitmine has clearly slowed its coin purchases in recent months. Since June this year, its single-week accumulation scale has gradually shrunk from the previous 100,000 or even 200,000 ETH to tens of thousands or even lower. Although the direction of continued buying has not changed, it can be seen that Bitmine is actively adjusting its hoarding pace.
The aggressive hoarding strategy has also put considerable paper pressure on Bitmine. Based on an average ETH holding price of $3,334, Bitmine's current unrealized loss is about $5 billion. In response, Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee remains optimistic. He said most of the company's ETH holdings were accumulated during the crypto market bear market, so before the next crypto bull market he expects, Bitmine is already in a relatively favorable position.
"We will not continue to increase our holdings after exceeding 5%, nor will we hold more than 5% of Ethereum's total supply of ETH." Tom Lee clearly stated at the Token2049 conference in Singapore that BitMine has set 5% as a hard cap on holdings.
It should be noted that several months ago, in an interview with Bankless, Tom Lee said that as more and more companies begin to view ETH as a long-term reserve asset similar to real estate, it may also become reasonable for Bitmine to hold more than 5% of ETH's total supply. He also revealed that the company may reassess this holding target in 2027, when the judgment will mainly be based on Ethereum's adoption rate and ecosystem development.
Perhaps 5% is not necessarily the absolute upper limit of Bitmine's long-term holdings. Whether it will continue to increase holdings in the future still depends on the development of the Ethereum ecosystem and the company's own capital operation strategy.
Strategic focus may shift to valuation repair, using staking rewards to cover financial expenses
At present, Bitmine's choice to press pause after its holding target is about to be reached may take into account both the healthy development of the Ethereum ecosystem and its own stock price performance.
From the perspective of ecosystem building, Tom Lee has publicly explained many times that BitMine set its ETH holding target at 5% in the hope of holding a sufficiently large scale of ETH to exert positive influence without disturbing the ecosystem. In his view, 5% is both a holding ratio capable of producing substantive influence and an important long-term support for the Ethereum ecosystem, serving as a "ballast" for network development.
On the other hand, BitMine itself also faces stock price pressure. Over the past year, BMNR's stock price has fallen by more than 55.6%. For Bitmine, continuous financing to buy coins is an important means of expanding its ETH reserves, but the equity dilution pressure brought by financing may also drag down the market's valuation of the company's stock.
To boost its stock price, Bitmine is slowing the pace of ETH purchases while launching a stock buyback plan. According to official disclosure, between July 14 and August 17, the company repurchased 21 million shares for $350 million. Tom Lee called this the largest stock buyback in crypto industry history.
Now, as its coin hoarding scale approaches its set holding target, Bitmine's strategic focus may shift to shareholder returns and valuation repair. In a recent speech at Token2049 Singapore, Tom Lee pointed out that after reaching its established holding target, BMNR is expected to outperform ETH because the company no longer needs to continuously finance coin purchases, and market concerns about equity dilution are also expected to ease.
Completing its coin hoarding target does not mean Bitmine will sell its core ETH holdings to meet financial needs. Tom Lee recently said that most DAT companies holding large amounts of assets may ultimately need to sell some assets to pay operating expenses, repay debt, or distribute returns to shareholders. But BitMine's situation is different: ETH can continuously generate returns through staking, and existing staking income is already enough to cover preferred stock dividend expenses, thereby reducing the need for the company to sell core ETH holdings to meet financial obligations.
It is reported that Bitmine currently stakes 5,067,309 ETH, with annualized staking income of $336 million; if all were staked, based on a 7-day staking yield of 2.61%, annualized income is expected to reach $400 million.
However, Tom Lee also clearly revealed that Bitmine will sell the staking rewards it receives. In his view, selling core ETH holdings may mean changing the existing strategy, while selling rewards generated by staking is a way to manage the scale of holdings.
But even based on an annualized income of $400 million after staking all holdings, the average daily selling amount would be about $1.1 million, with limited direct impact on ETH's price.
After the largest buyer stops sweeping up coins, who will fill the gap in the market?
It cannot be denied that over the past year or so, Bitmine has not only been an important buying force in the ETH market, but also an important participant supporting market confidence.
According to SoSoValue data, as of October 13, the total net asset value of U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs was about $15.83 billion, with a net asset ratio (the ratio of the market value of assets held by ETFs to ETH's total market value) reaching 5.16%. By comparison, the ETH holdings of a single DAT company, Bitmine, are already comparable to the overall holdings of U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs.
More importantly, Bitmine's buying scale can already absorb ETH's new supply to a certain extent. Taking the past 30 days as an example, ultrasound.money data shows that ETH's new issuance was about 86,000 coins, while Bitmine bought about 72,000 ETH during the same period, equivalent to 75.2% of new issuance over the same period.
However, if Bitmine no longer continues sweeping up coins, who can step up to become ETH's new buying force has also become a topic of market attention.
At present, spot ETFs have not yet shown sufficiently strong absorption capacity. Data shows that U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs have seen net outflows for two consecutive weeks, with $542 million withdrawn last week alone, the largest single-week net outflow since January this year. If the outflow trend continues, ETFs will not only find it difficult to fill the buying gap Bitmine may leave behind, but may also further increase selling pressure in the market.
Other digital asset treasury companies also have limited buying capacity. At present, SharpLink, the second-largest ETH treasury company, holds ETH equivalent to about 0.73% of total supply, far below Bitmine's holding ratio of about 4.9%. Whether in terms of asset reserve scale or the ability to continue increasing holdings, other DAT companies are currently difficult to compare with BitMine.
However, changes in buying forces do not necessarily mean ETH's price will continue to come under pressure. Market demand still depends on ETF fund flows, other institutions' allocation willingness, and risk appetite across the entire crypto market.
For the medium- and long-term trend, Tom Lee remains optimistic. He believes the next crypto bull market is expected to be the largest in history, driven by multiple factors, including asset tokenization, generational wealth transfer, digital asset treasury companies continuing to absorb market supply, and the crypto industry benefiting from artificial intelligence development as a downstream part of the AI industry chain.In Tom Lee's view, the wealth transfer now underway could also bring new incremental capital into the crypto market. Because the group inheriting wealth is relatively young, its risk appetite for crypto assets and stocks may be higher, and the impact of this trend in the current cycle may exceed that of the 2019 to 2021 bull market.
For ETH's price outlook, Tom Lee has offered an even more aggressive prediction. He expects ETH to have a chance of breaking through $5,000 before the end of this year; if Bitcoin's price breaks above $100,000, ETH could then rise further to about $7,500. His long-term bullish logic lies in the possibility that, after years of consolidation, Ethereum may see a larger-scale price breakout.
Overall, after Ethereum's largest buyer stops adding to its position, ETH market absorption capacity may face a test. But the buying pace of a single treasury company cannot determine ETH's long-term trend. As asset tokenization accelerates, institutional allocation demand grows, and the Ethereum ecosystem continues to develop, the market is still expected to see new incremental capital, providing new demand support for ETH.