Bitmine Immersion Technologies increased its Ether holding to 5.54 million ETH after acquiring nearly 127,000 tokens over the past week, increasing its hoard to 4.59% of the total Ethereum supply.
The company said it has now achieved 92% of its goal of capturing 5% of the total Ethereum supply, which it calls the “5% Alchemy” strategy. He added that 4.72 million ETH (ETH), or about 85% of its holdings, are currently staked via the validator’s infrastructure, worth about $7.7 billion at current prices.
Bitmine projected $230 million in annual staking revenue from its current position staked on ETH, with rewards potentially increasing to $270 million if its stakes are fully staked through MAVAN and other staking partners.
Despite the broader cryptocurrency market slowdown, Bitmine CEO Tom Lee said advances in artificial intelligence could boost demand for public blockchains like Ethereum (ETH), which he described as a “reliable decentralized” blockchain.
According to CoinMarketCap, the global cryptocurrency market capitalization is $2.19 trillion data at the time of publication. That’s down from $2.69 trillion as of May 9.
As of June 7, Bitmine held 5,543,872 ETH and 204 Bitcoin (BTC), as well as $247 million in cash and equity interests in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings.
According to CoinGecko data, Bitmine is the largest Ether treasury company among the 32 public entities tracked by the platform. Its ETH holdings of 5.54 million are more than six times larger than the holdings of second-ranked SharpLink, which holds 868,699 ETH.
Top Ethereum Treasury Stocks. Source: CoinGecko
Bitmine shares rose more than 6% on Monday after the announcement, although the stock has fallen about 38% since the beginning of the year, according to Yahoo Finance. The company’s market capitalization was approximately $9.59 billion.
Source: Yahoo Finance
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Ether is under pressure despite continued Bitmine accumulation
It’s been a complex year for Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, even as Bitmine aggressively grows its treasury. CoinGecko data shows ETH is down more than 43% year-to-date, falling from over $3,000 in January to around $1,685 on Monday.
Source: CoinGecko
Some enormous bondholders reduced their exposure during the downturn. In May, the Ethereum Foundation sold 20,000 ETH through two OTC transactions worth a total of approximately $46.8 million. The sale followed an earlier 5,000 ETH transaction in March, bringing the total amount of ETH sold by the foundation this year to 25,000 ETH.
The cryptocurrency’s needy price performance has also prompted some longtime Ethereum supporters to reassess their investment prospects. In May, Bankless co-founder David Hoffman said he had sold the rest of his Ether holdings, arguing that the long-standing “ETH is money” thesis had largely proven true.
Hoffman said he remains hopeful about Ethereum as a network, but believes that much of its future growth may not be reflected in the token itself. Layer 2 networks and other ecosystem participants capture much of the economic value generated on the blockchain, he said.
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