Bitmine Closes In on Five Percent of All Ethereum

Bitmine Immersion Technologies is close to owning five percent of all Ethereum in existence, but it's not just a matter of reaching a target. The company has been buying Ethereum for 15 months and has already acquired 5,901,112 ETH, worth about $14.8 billion at the current price of $2,511 per ether. This represents 4.9% of Ethereum's total supply of 120.7 million tokens.

The company's chairman, Tom Lee, has been vocal about his commitment to buying Ethereum and has stated that it is the best-performing macro asset of the third quarter, outperforming the S&P 500 by 5,430 basis points through August 28. Bitmine's treasury strategy has become more active than a simple corporate hoard, with the company not only holding ether but also putting a large share of that ether into validation.

The concentration question is real, as Ethereum was built to run without one actor sitting at the center of it. A single public company holding almost one in twenty tokens gives one balance sheet more weight than many crypto investors are used to admitting. Bitmine's next decision will become part of the market structure around ETH, not just a trade inside it.