Bitmine's weekly ether buy shrinks again near 5% goal

The flow

Over the latest weekly window, 12,532 ETH went into Bitmine's treasury, the company said in a Monday release, lifting the count it gave for Oct. 11 to 6,028,946 ETH. Decrypt valued the week's purchase at about $31.9 million, using the $2,544 per ETH price Bitmine used for its own books.

A buyer slowing on purpose

Unchained reported that the holding equals roughly 4.9% of ether's total supply of 122.1 million, leaving a gap of about 76,000 ETH to the 5% goal Bitmine has pursued since its ether treasury plan began on June 30, 2025.

The weekly figures show the slowdown clearly. After 17,362 ETH and then 15,112 ETH, this week's 12,532 ETH was the third smaller purchase in a row, Unchained noted. For scale, the Aug. 31 update showed a 53,501 ETH purchase.

None of this is a surprise. In May, chairman Tom Lee flagged that buying could ease close to 5%. In his monthly message, Decrypt reported, he said Bitmine needs roughly 100,000 more ETH and little beyond that, and he put it plainly: "Now we're done stacking while a bull market is starting". According to CoinDesk, Lee has said the company will stop accumulating once it hits the target, and Bitmine says it has bought ether every week since its June 2025 pivot. CoinDesk wrote that at last week's pace the goal could be reached in about six weeks.

Where the coins sit

Most of the ether is not idle. Bitmine reported 5,067,309 staked ETH, the same figure as the week before, according to Unchained. CoinDesk put staked ether near 5.07 million, or 84% of the stash, with roughly $336 million a year in projected staking revenue at current yields. Lee projected $400 million in yearly rewards if everything were staked, based on a 2.61% yield measured over seven days.

The wider balance sheet shrank in dollar terms. Bitmine valued everything it holds, including its so-called moonshot stakes, at $16.2 billion, against $17.4 billion a week earlier, partly because of lower prices: its Coinbase-based valuation price for ether was $2,544, compared with $2,726 last time. Beyond ether it holds 214 bitcoin, a $180 million Beast Industries stake, an $85 million Eightco Holdings stake that was listed at $117 million a week earlier, and $612 million in cash or securities.

How to read it

A treasury company's weekly buy is a reported flow: the company states what it bought over the week, and the figure arrives as a single number rather than a stream of on-chain transfers. It is real demand in the sense that coins were bought and held, and most of them are now staked rather than sitting on an exchange.

But one buyer is not the market. A shrinking weekly figure tells you about one company's plan, which it has announced in advance, not about ether demand as a whole. Equally, a stop to buying would remove one steady source of purchases without implying any selling. CoinDesk also noted it is unclear how much inherited wealth, a demand driver Lee cites, will actually reach digital assets.

Where price sits

Vertex Investments data from Bybit daily closes shows ETH last closed at $2,508. That is down 7.0% over seven days, up 1.3% over 30 days and up 34.5% over 90 days. The price sits 9.6% below the 90-day high close of $2,776 on 2026-09-21, and 1.9% below its 50-day average of $2,557, about 71% of the way through its 90-day range.

On the morning watchlist

These are the figures worth checking in the next briefing.

• Next week's Bitmine purchase figure, and whether it shrinks again.
• How close the reported holding gets to the 5% mark, and any statement that buying has stopped.
• Whether the staked total moves from 5,067,309 ETH.