Bitmine buys ETH worth $69M – approaching 5% of total supply

TL;DR

Bitmine hoarding Ether at record pace

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE American: BMNR) confirmed on September 8, 2026 that it has completed a new Ether purchase worth $69 million – equivalent to approximately 640 million Norwegian kroner at current exchange rates. The acquisition brings the company's total ETH holdings to 5.93 million tokens, according to information provided by the company itself.

With combined crypto and cash holdings of $15.7 billion, Bitmine is positioning itself as what it describes as the world's leading Ethereum treasury company. The strategy was launched in June 2025 and has since grown aggressively.

Approaching a symbolic threshold

Ethereum's total supply is finite, and Bitmine's 5.93 million ETH represents an ever-growing share of what is in circulation. According to available information, the company is on course toward a position equivalent to approximately 5 percent of the total supply – a threshold that would make it one of the single largest individual actors in the network.

The company earns staking rewards and validation gains through its institutional staking platform called MAVAN, combining this with direct ETH accumulation in the market. The strategy is described internally as a "self-reinforcing cycle" in which increased ETH per share is intended to strengthen shareholder value.

Executive Chairman Thomas Lee – better known as co-founder of research firm Fundstrat Global Advisors – has been a central architect behind the initiative.

Concentration risk: A growing problem for Ethereum

Bitmine's acquisitions are taking place within a broader context in which the concentration of ETH among large players is increasing markedly. According to research data, whale addresses (defined as those holding more than 1 percent of circulating supply) controlled around 22 percent of ETH in early 2023 – a share that, according to available data, had nearly doubled to 43 percent by January 2025.

In a joint report from September 2026, ARK Invest and Glassnode warn that Ethereum in practice requires only three staking entities to cooperate in order to exceed 33 percent control of the network – a threshold that could threaten the network's finality. The report highlights Lido (23 percent of staked ETH), Binance (8.88 percent), and Kraken (6.91 percent) as the largest individual actors in the staking ecosystem as of July 2026.

Analysts at CryptoQuant noted in August 2026 that large ETH holders had been accumulating ETH from retail investors throughout the year. Ethereum's Gini coefficient – a measure of inequality in wealth distribution – is reported to have remained above 0.89 between 2020 and 2025, indicating a highly skewed distribution.

Infrastructure and geography: A third vulnerability

Concentration is not limited to who owns ETH. Around 49 percent of Ethereum's execution-layer nodes run in cloud environments, with Amazon Web Services alone accounting for approximately 20 percent, according to the same research material. The two largest providers together control around 27 percent of the infrastructure – representing a centralized risk should one of the providers experience an outage or regulatory pressure.

Bull market buying in a risk-on environment

The purchase comes in a market characterized by risk appetite. The crypto Fear & Greed Index stands at 66 out of 100, and Bitcoin is trading at around $78,134. In such a climate, institutional accumulation of altcoins like ETH is typical behavior among players with a long time horizon.

It is worth noting that Bitmine's own statements about the company's strategy and market position have not been independently verified by a third party. Investors should treat the company's self-description as marketing material until auditor-approved financial statements are available.