Tom Lee’s BitMine Bets 5.90 Million ETH on a 5% Goal

BitMine Immersion Technologies added 53,501 ether last week, lifting its stash to 5,901,112 ETH, or 4.9% of the 120.7 million token supply. Chairman Tom Lee’s firm, listed as BMNR on the NYSE, valued that pile at about $14.8 billion using a $2,511 Coinbase print at 3:00 p.m. ET on August 30, 2026.

The buy was the 65th straight weekly purchase since the ETH treasury strategy began on June 30, 2025. Lee has branded the drive the Alchemy of 5%, and the company now says it is 98% of the way there after 15 months.

BitMine Is 134,000 ETH Short of 5%

Five percent of 120.7 million tokens is 6,035,000 ETH, so the remaining gap is about 134,000 coins. At the same $2,511 reference price the firm used for the treasury, that last slice is worth roughly $336 million. Lee’s group already sits on $541 million in cash and marketable securities, which is more than enough to finish the stated target without tapping the equity market again.

The 5.90 million ETH treasury update filed as an exhibit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also lists 211 bitcoin, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries, an $81 million stake in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS), and those cash balances. Taken together, BitMine put crypto and cash holdings of $15.6 billion on the August 30 snapshot.

Backers named in the release include ARK’s Cathie Wood, MOZAYYX, Founders Fund, Bill Miller III, Pantera, Kraken, DCG, Galaxy Digital, and Lee as a personal investor, all described as supporting the 5% goal. Norwalk, Connecticut, is home base. The common stock was added to the Russell 1000 on June 26, 2026, and the 9.5% Series A perpetual preferred trades as BMNP.

BITMINE VERSUS STRATEGY

BitMine called itself the largest Ethereum treasury and the No. 2 digital-asset treasury globally, behind Michael Saylor’s Strategy. Strategy’s own filing for August 24-30 added 4,603 bitcoin and took its stack to 845,050 BTC, a figure BitMine’s release had not yet folded in.

The Buying Streak Slowed, Then Jumped

Lee said the firm has bought ether every week since inception. The size of those weeks has not been flat. Official weekly totals posted by the company show a summer lull, then a sharp pickup.

WEEKLY ETH BUYS INTO THE 5% LINE

Several July and August weeks landed under 10,000 ETH, which is the pace of a company that can see the finish line. The 53,501-coin week is the largest since June, when a 126,971-ETH haul marked the high for 2026. At the $2,511 reference, last week’s lot is about $134 million; a $2,455 Monday print puts it near $131 million.

https://x.com/BitMNR/status/2094412899947020333

That sequence is the wager in motion. Early weeks built the position. Midsummer weeks kept the streak alive without racing through the last 5%. The latest print spends like a close-out bid.

Staking Now Projects $340 Million a Year

BitMine has staked 5,067,309 ETH, or 86% of the 5.90 million it holds, worth $12.7 billion at $2,511. Lee said the firm’s own staking run produced a seven-day yearly yield of 2.67%, and that current yearly staking revenue is now projected at $340 million.

THE STAKING ENGINE ON AUGUST 30

• Staked coins: 5,067,309 ETH, 86% of the treasury.
• Staked value: $12.7 billion at the $2,511 Coinbase print.
• Company yield: 2.67% seven-day yearly rate on BitMine’s own operations.
• At full stake: $396 million a year if MAVAN and partners stake the entire pile at 2.67%.

The network print is a little lower. Beaconcha.in’s ETH.STORE reference, which averages validator rewards over a 24-hour window, showed a network staking yield of 2.61% on the latest reward day in the series. BitMine’s 2.67% sits just above that average, which is what you would expect from a large, always-on operator, not a magic spread.

MAVAN, the Made in America Validator Network, launched earlier in 2026 to stake BitMine’s own coins and, the company says, to take on institutional clients, custodians, and partners. A portion of the 5.07 million staked ETH already sits on that network. Lee said BitMine has staked more ether than other entities in the world. The yield is the cash the bet throws off while ether itself still chops under the $2,540 to $2,550 zone that has capped recent rallies.

Over the past week, we acquired 53,501 ETH. Bitmine has bought ETH for each of the past 65 weeks (every week since the inception of the ETH Treasury Strategy on June 30, 2025).

Thomas “Tom” Lee, Chairman of Bitmine, August 31 company release

If ether never clears that ceiling, $340 million a year is still a real operating line. If more of the pile is staked, Lee’s $396 million figure becomes the run-rate the preferred dividend has to live next to.

How Does BitMine Stack Up Against Strategy?

Saylor’s vehicle still dwarfs BitMine on dollars. Strategy’s bitcoin, even on BitMine’s older 840,447 figure, was cited at about $66 billion, more than four times BitMine’s $15.6 billion mix of ether, cash, and side bets. Strategy also holds a USD reserve and a newer cash pool that together sit in the billions, a buffer BitMine has not tried to match.

The ether side of the ledger is where BitMine wins the comparison it cares about. No other listed company has reported a larger ETH treasury. Fundstrat data cited in the release put BMNR’s five-day average dollar volume at $1.36 billion as of August 29, 2026, ranking it 62nd among 5,704 U.S.-listed stocks, behind Texas Instruments and ahead of UnitedHealth Group.

That volume is the other half of the bet. A stock that trades like a liquid ether proxy can still issue shares when it sits above the value of the coins. When it does not, buying slows, which is exactly what the summer weeklies already showed. Strategy spent part of August selling stock to build cash and, in a later window, buying bitcoin again. BitMine spent August doing the ether version of the same loop, only with a published 5% finish line.

Cash, Preferred Stock and the Last Stretch

Cash and marketable securities jumped from $308 million on the August 24 update to $541 million on August 30, a $233 million increase in a week when the firm also absorbed another 53,501 ETH. That is not the balance sheet of a company scraping for inventory. It is a company that raised dollars and spent a slice of them on coins.

The 9.5% BMNP preferred is the expensive piece of the stack. Staking at 2.67% does not cover a 9.5% coupon on its own if the preferred notional is large relative to the staked pile, which is why the common equity’s premium, or lack of one, still decides how fast the last 134,000 ETH can be bought. The Alchemy of 5% investor materials present the target as both a treasury goal and a bridge between Ethereum and Wall Street, with MAVAN as the operating layer that is supposed to remain after the buying slows.

Once 5% is printed, the marginal bid that has been there for 65 weeks can fade even if no coins are sold. The remaining gap is small enough that cash on hand already covers it. The open question is whether Lee treats 5% as a ceiling or as a round number on the way to a larger share of supply.

Lee Is Betting on Tokenization and a September Vote

Lee’s market case is that ether is already winning the quarter, and that institutions will notice. He said ETH was the best-performing macro asset in the third quarter so far, beating the S&P 500 by 5,430 basis points through the Friday before the release, and that ETH, bitcoin, and Solana were the top three assets since June 30.

LEE’S CATALYSTS FOR LATE 2026

• Market-structure bill: He flagged a CLARITY Act vote scheduled for mid-September as a near-term catalyst.
• Korea flow: He said Korean investors have started buying crypto again and rotating away from AI stocks.
• Cycle timing: He argued the four-year crypto cycle is bottoming within a few weeks.
• Use case: He expects Wall Street tokenization and agentic-AI systems that settle on-chain to lift the ETH/BTC ratio, after prior cycles driven by ICOs, NFTs, and stablecoins.

He also tied the GENIUS Act and the SEC’s Project Crypto to August 15, 1971, when the United States ended Bretton Woods gold convertibility, calling those 2026 moves as transformational for financial services as that break was 55 years ago. That is a chairman’s pitch, not a measured forecast, and it sits next to an ether chart that has failed more than once at $2,540 to $2,550. Analyst Ted has mapped a weekly reclaim of $2,550 as a path toward $2,800, with a loss of $2,370 opening $2,180 to $2,220.

The coins are already on the books. The last 134,000 ETH are a cash decision. Mid-September’s vote is the calendar date Lee has pointed at, and the $541 million cash line is the figure that says the 5% wager can be completed on this balance sheet if he wants it done.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of BitMine’s disclosed Ethereum treasury, staking figures, and related market prices, and it is for information only. It is not investment, trading, tax, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy or sell BMNR, BMNP, ether, bitcoin, or any other security or digital asset. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser and, where relevant, a tax professional who understands digital-asset treasuries before making any decision. Holdings, token prices, staking yields, and index or trading ranks reflect the company release, filings, and market sources as of early September 2026 and can change quickly.