10x Research: Bitmine Ethereum Treasury Loses 10 Billion USD! Investors Double Victimized, but "Free Bullish Options" Might Be Hidden in the Ruins

According to the well-known macro research firm 10x Research, released today (10th), Ethereum (ETH)’s largest treasury holder, Bitmine, has crazily raised $19.2 billion over the past 11 months through 50 issuance of premium stock offerings, and bought 5.54 million ETH. However, due to the sharp decline in ETH prices and the collapse of the net asset value (NAV) premium structure, the company has now inflicted a staggering $126k loss on investors, with capital withdrawal reaching 52%.
(Background: Bitmine bought 126k ETH, with total holdings surpassing 5.54 million ETH! Expected to control 5% of Ethereum supply by year-end)
(Additional context: DWF founder warns: Strategy and BitMine could trigger the largest chain liquidation in cryptocurrency history)

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  • 50 stock issuances in 11 months! The myth of Bitmine’s treasury is shattered
  • Double harvest: ETH plummeting and the “structural premium” chain reaction
  • Short-term rebound unlikely, but stock price has fallen into a “free call option” zone?

Market dubbed “Ethereum version of MicroStrategy,” the U.S.-listed company Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR), its aggressive crypto treasury strategy quickly turned into a costly lesson of historic proportions on Wall Street after facing market headwinds. The renowned crypto macro research firm 10x Research released a new analysis today, bluntly stating that Bitmine has now caused retail investors to suffer a collective loss of up to $10 billion.

Bitmine Lost $10 Billion. But Buried Inside the Wreckage Is a Free Call Option Nobody Is Pricing.

Few investments have taught so many retail investors so much about NAV premiums, mNAV mechanics, and structural wealth transfers.

The tuition was $4.6 billion. The actual losses… pic.twitter.com/hhtBGfBjyA

— 10x Research (@10xResearch) June 10, 2026

50 stock issuances in 11 months! The myth of Bitmine’s treasury is shattered

The report states that in just 11 months from July 2025 to June 2026, Bitmine raised a staggering $19.2 billion through up to 50 equity offerings (mainly via at-the-market offerings), wildly raising capital in the market. The company converted all these funds into 5,543,872 ETH, controlling up to 4.6% of the total circulating supply of Ethereum.

However, this capital alchemy, originally packaged as “Alchemy of 5%,” was completely exposed when Ethereum recently dropped to around $1,650. The massive ETH treasury held by Bitmine has now shrunk in value to $9.1 billion, causing investors to sit on a huge loss of $10.1 billion, with invested capital slashed by 52%.

Double harvest: ETH plummeting and the “structural premium” chain reaction

10x Research founder Markus Thielen’s team analyzed deeply, revealing that this $10 billion disaster was driven by two major forces:

First, a simple asset crash: Ethereum’s price, from the company’s weighted average purchase cost of $3,526, has fallen by 52%.

Second, a deadly “structural premium”: Retail investors, over the past 11 months, paid an excessively high market premium—far above the underlying ETH net asset value (NAV premium)—when buying Bitmine stock. This means that before Ethereum’s price even declined, investors had already paid an extra $4.6 billion in overpayment. When the market reversed, the simultaneous collapse of asset prices and the NAV premium (valuation collapse) triggered a chain reaction of losses.

Short-term rebound unlikely, but stock price has fallen into a “free call option” zone?

“We have been critical of Ethereum over the past eight months and warned against blindly exposing treasury risk by buying such stocks when implied costs are too high,” 10x Research states in the report, indicating that the short-term recovery of Ethereum is highly unlikely.

However, this seemingly pessimistic report ends with a macro twist. It emphasizes that when a company’s stock price falls deep enough and its balance sheet is thoroughly wrecked, the underlying asset (ETH) itself can sometimes become less relevant in the short term. 10x Research adds: “You are essentially buying a pure optionality (call option).”

10x Research suggests that beneath Bitmine’s battered balance sheet, there may be a “completely unpriced” free call option—an undervalued structural opportunity that could become a significant contrarian investment in the late bear market.

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