Bitmine Immersion Technologies has once again made headlines by adding 27,084 Ethereum [ETH] to its treasury in the last week. Bitmine now has 5,700,040 ETH, valued at $9.01 billion at $1,569, thanks to this new addition. Together, these represent 4.7% of Ethereum’s total supply.
Interestingly, this occurred during the week when the price of ETH had fallen from about $1780 to $1,578.54 at the time of writing. Additionally, for the majority of June, the ETH ETF also saw withdrawals, recording $501.39 million in outflows as per SoSo Value data.
The hubbubs in the DAT space
Addressing the weak market conditions, Bitmine’s Chairman Tom Lee said,
This past week was a challenging one for crypto investors as ETH fell by 8%….We are nearing quarter-end for June, and it is not surprising to see ‘window dressing’ leading to investors reducing their holdings in assets which have fallen in the past 3 months.
Aside from the volatility of ETH and ETFs, another obstacle was the continuous scrutiny of Michael Saylor’s company, Strategy. The last report from AMBCrypto stated that Strategy was sitting on an unrealized loss of approximately $14 billion, while its annual payouts from its 11.5% dividend amount to about $1.2 billion.
Meanwhile, Strategy’s common stock (MSTR) and preferred stock (STRC) both dropped below the $100 level.
Seeing these metrics, many in the crypto community have now started to suggest that Strategy should stop expanding its Bitcoin [BTC] holdings. As previously reported by AMBCrypto, Zach Pandl, Grayscale’s Head of Research, believes,
Sale of ≥ ~$3bn $BTC to cover nearly all cash obligations for next 2yrs (ex one of the converts); probably would restore market confidence.
Will Bitmine face the same problems?
Now, since Bitmine is frequently referred to as Ethereum’s Strategy, the Ethereum DAT may experience the same difficulties and criticism for its accumulating spree.
Given that public companies own $74.94 billion worth of Bitcoin and $11.48 billion worth of Ethereum, and Strategy is the largest Bitcoin DAT, worries about Bitmine are understandable.
However, these are merely conjectures, and there is no proof if this will actually happen in the near future.
This is also because Bitmine is not just accumulating ETH. With an estimated yearly staking revenue of $211 million, Bitmine has also reported $555 million in cash and marketable securities as well as 4.88 million staked in ETH.
Additionally, Bitmine was also included in the Russell 1000 Large-Cap Index on the 26th of June as part of the index’s yearly reconstitution.
Given all these dynamics in the picture, Lee further stressed that the company plans to continue growing steadily through 2026. According to him, the market is just beginning a new bullish cycle, and hence he predicted it best when he said,
The best years for crypto remain ahead, in our view. Tokenization and the rapid progress in AI are expected to drive exponential demand growth for blockchain and decentralized crypto.
Final Summary
- With the new addition of ETH, Bitmine now has 5,700,040 ETH, valued at $9.01 billion at $1,569.
- Despite ETH’s weak price action, ETF outflows, and ongoing criticism around Saylor’s Strategy, Bitmine continued on its ETH buying spree.