#Bitmine再次买入2.5万枚ETH Who can support Ethereum's biggest last buyer for how long?

As the crypto market continues to decline, BTC and ETH once dropped near $60k and $1,500, with Strategy and Bitmine floating losses exceeding $60k each. At the end of May, Strategy sold 32 BTC, breaking the long-standing narrative of not selling coins, and the financing-to-buy mode entered a stress test phase. Against this backdrop, Bitmine announced a high-profile issuance of Series A perpetual preferred shares with a 9.5% annualized yield, raising approximately $274 million. As of press time, Bitmine increased its ETH holdings by 127k last week, with a total purchase of 125k over the past three days. Currently, its total holdings are about 5.66 million ETH, less than 400k ETH short of the 5% target.
As the most persistent and aggressive marginal buyer of ETH in the market, Bitmine continues to add positions despite floating losses exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars. Now even it needs to rely on preferred shares to fund its flywheel—if the financing market experiences anomalies or the coin-hoarding machine is forced to slow down, who else can support Ethereum’s price? Buying enough to reach 5% by the end of the year, and then what?
Bitmine began accumulating ETH in the second half of last year, planning to complete the "5% alchemy" within five years. Data shows that between July 2025 and June 2026, Bitmine raised $19.2 billion through 50 equity issuances, all used to buy ETH. As of press time, Bitmine’s ETH holdings have reached about 5.66 million, less than 400k short of the 5% target, with actual progress over 90% in one year. About 127k ETH have been staked, accounting for over 85% of total holdings, with an expected annualized staking yield of approximately $125k to $296 million. This staking system is supported by the company's self-built MAVAN validator node network and is considered the key structural difference that sets Bitmine apart from Strategy.
However, the cost of aggressive coin hoarding is also clear: ETH is currently around $1,650, while the company's cost basis is about $3,500, and its ETH treasury value is only about $9.3 billion. The company's overall loss has reached $10.5 billion, with a drawdown of over 50%. The stock price has fallen nearly 90% from its peak. According to 10x Research, Bitmine’s investors face two layers of losses: the first is floating loss from ETH’s decline, and the second is that when purchasing BMNR shares, they paid a premium of about $4.6 billion over the underlying ETH net assets. Combined, these layers amplify the actual losses for shareholders. Facing huge floating losses, Tom Lee characterized this decline as superficial. He believes that the current financial system has many fake transactions, while Ethereum has never experienced fraudulent trades; it has lower operating costs, and on-chain transaction volume and daily active addresses have hit record highs. The price correction is mainly driven by macro factors and deleveraging, with no fundamental damage.
A longer-term bet is that AI agent systems will rely on blockchain operation, and ETH supply continues to shrink, making Ethereum the most direct beneficiary. Tom Lee recently revealed that Bitmine expects to reach the 5% goal by the end of 2026, at which point it may not need to continue increasing holdings. He also mentioned that the company might be officially included in the Russell 1000 index by the end of June, which, based on current market cap, could bring at least $2.15 billion in passive capital inflows for BMNR.
How will the 3% staking yield support a 9.5% dividend? On June 5, Bitmine completed the pricing of Series A perpetual preferred shares: 3.5 million shares at $80 each, with a face value of $100, raising about $274 million net. The dividend rate is 9.5%, paid weekly in cash, and even if the board does not declare dividends, they will continue to accrue. Based on face value, the annual dividend obligation is about $33.25 million. Bitmine has early redemption rights, allowing redemption at 110% of face value within 18 months, at 105% from 18 months to 3 years, and at par after 3 years, with additional payment of accrued unpaid dividends upon redemption. At first glance, this calculation seems straightforward. By the end of May, Bitmine had staked 4.7 million ETH, with an expected annualized staking yield of about $400k to $296 million, which is 8 to 9 times the annual dividend obligation. However, this forecast of over $200 million is based on the assumption that the 4.7 million ETH are fully staked recently. According to the prospectus, in the six months ending February 28, 2026, the company's staking income was $11.18 million, with an annualized rate of about $22 million.
It’s worth noting that staking yields are denominated in ETH, not USD. If ETH continues to decline, the company's staking income will shrink accordingly. This highlights a fundamental difference between Bitmine and Strategy: BTC has no native yield, and Strategy’s STRC pays dividends, relying solely on BTC appreciation or selling coins. ETH’s staking mechanism offers Tom Lee a different route: if the price remains stable, staking yields still generate income without touching the underlying holdings. This is Bitmine’s real advantage in the current bear market.
But this path may not go far. Crypto KOL chenmo pointed out that early issuance volume was low, so covering dividends with staking yields isn’t a big problem initially. But as the preferred stock issuance scale continues to grow, a 3-4% staking yield will inevitably be insufficient to cover the 9.5% annual interest. At that point, ETH appreciation will be necessary to sustain this logic. Analyst Yuyue also said that STRC is under pressure in the current market, and issuing preferred shares now—even if temporarily positive—could be seen as a worse signal by the market. According to CointelegraphMT research, there are two other details in the prospectus worth noting. The auditor was changed to KPMG on April 27, and at the same time, significant internal control deficiencies were disclosed, with the audit not yet completed, and financial data may be restated. Additionally, the board has full discretion over dividend payments, and the only enforcement mechanism for preferred shareholders is the nomination of two directors if dividends are not received for 18 consecutive months.
If Bitmine stops buying after reaching 5%, where will ETH’s price go?
On-chain analyst Yujin said that, based on current buying pace, the target could be reached in about a month. But after that, will they continue to buy? If they stop, the last firm bulls in this market will disappear, and what will support ETH then?
Bitmine has been the most persistent and aggressive marginal buyer of ETH over the past year. Other potential buyers are scattered and weak. Last week, ETH spot ETF saw a net outflow of $173 million, and after 17 days of continuous outflows, it briefly turned positive on June 8, but the scale was much smaller than previous outflows. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs plans to cut ETH ETF holdings by about 70% in Q1 2026, and Harvard’s endowment completely liquidated its $87 million ETH position after just one quarter. Additionally, institutional incremental demand from stablecoin legislation and RWA tokenization is a slow variable, unlikely to fill the gap left by Bitmine in the short term. Without a broader crypto market reversal, it’s foreseeable that the treasury flywheel will falter, leading to a cycle: ETH prices keep falling, BMNR stock faces pressure, relative net asset premiums narrow, issuance financing windows shrink, buying slows down, and ETH loses marginal support further. This cycle might even occur without Bitmine actively selling a single ETH—loss of buying power alone is enough.
In a pessimistic scenario, if the financing market’s acceptance of preferred shares declines, BMNR hits new lows, and buying slows significantly, ETH could drop to the next consensus key level (around $1,000). Andrei Grachev, co-founder of DWF Labs, believes that Strategy and Bitmine have a good chance to trigger the biggest market crash in crypto history. This is a tail risk assessment, not a baseline expectation. Under the baseline scenario, Bitmine maintains buying, staking yields provide buffers, preferred shares are smoothly absorbed, and ETH consolidates in the $1,500–$2,000 range. Despite heavy losses for Bitmine and short-term ETH difficulty in recovery, 10x Research notes that when stocks fall deep enough, the underlying assets become almost irrelevant; investors are essentially buying pure options—betting on ETH’s future rebound—yet this is not fully priced in by the market.
In an optimistic scenario, inclusion in the Russell 1000 brings passive capital, and stablecoin legislation like the GENIUS Act clears institutional entry barriers. Standard Chartered maintains a target price of $4,000 for ETH by the end of 2026, believing that recent price declines do not reflect the ongoing improvement in Ethereum’s fundamentals, and compares the current situation to the post-bubble phase of Amazon in 2001—prices temporarily disconnected from network value, but infrastructure development never stopped. The bank expects ETH/BTC to rebound to about 0.08 by the end of this decade, with a target of $40k by 2030.
Ultimately, whether this financing can sustain Bitmine’s flywheel depends on ETH’s price. But, Bitmine’s coin-buying itself is also an important support for the price. So the core question is: after Bitmine reaches the 5% goal and gradually exits, who will take over? Traditional institutions are retreating, ETF flows are volatile, and real incremental demand from stablecoins and RWA has yet to materialize at scale. Ethereum may not lack narratives, but when will the liquidity turning point occur? Where will the new marginal buyers come from? These are the key issues that will determine ETH’s future price trajectory.