Bitmine ETH Buying Slows To 15,112 A Week As 5% Cap Nears

Bitmine ETH purchases shrank to 15,112 tokens in the week to October 4, 2026, the smallest of its last seven weekly filings. Cointelegraph reported on October 7 that Tom Lee, Bitmine's chairman, says the firm will not accumulate past 5% of ETH supply. The company already holds 4.9%, and Bitmine ETH buying has been the steadiest bid in the market since June 2025.

Cointelegraph's post, showing Lee at Token2049 in Singapore.

Bitmine ETH Is 88,931 Coins Short Of The 5% Line

Bitmine's filing of October 5 lists 6,016,414 ETH as of October 4 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. It sets that against a supply of 122.1 million and calls the company 99% of the way to its "Alchemy of 5%" goal.

Live supply data points the same way. Ultrasound.money put circulating supply at 122,106,898 ETH on October 7, so 5% is about 6,105,345 coins. Bitmine's stack equals 4.93%, and the gap is roughly 88,900 ETH. At Binance's price of about $2,618 that is near $233 million, about 1.3% of the $17.4 billion in total holdings Bitmine reported.

Supply keeps growing too, so the finish line drifts. It grew by an average of 2,905 ETH a day over the past week, which lifts the 5% mark by about 1,000 ETH weekly.

Bitmine's October 5 exhibit to its 8-K filing.

Weekly ETH Buys Fell 72% From Their August Peak

Bitmine's August 31 filing reported 53,501 ETH bought in the prior week. Since then the figures read 28,086, 27,180, 27,562, 17,362 and now 15,112. That is a 72% drop from the peak, and the last two weeks are the lowest of the run.

Bitmine ETH holdings grew at the same shrinking rate. The firm held 5,901,112 ETH in the August 31 filing and 6,016,414 in the latest. At 15,112 a week, the 88,900 gap takes almost six weeks, which points to mid-November.

In May, CoinDesk quoted Lee on the pace. At 100,000 ETH a week, he said, Bitmine would reach 5% in about six weeks. He added that the firm might prefer "a somewhat slower pace." It has since fallen to about a seventh of that.

Bitmine's Filing Makes No Promise Past 5%

The 8-K announced Lee's Token2049 keynote for 10:00 a.m. in Singapore on October 7, which is 02:00 UTC. Cointelegraph's post followed at 02:35 UTC, and the wording of the no-buying statement comes from that post. The filing still describes the goal as acquiring 5%. It makes no promise about what happens after that, and it says the company has bought ETH every week since June 30, 2025.

Staking is where the coins are working now. Bitmine reports 5,067,309 ETH staked, about 84% of its holdings, with projected annualized staking revenue of $363 million. It also holds $643 million in cash and marketable securities.

Lee also compares the stock with the coin in the same filing. In the first nine months of 2026, he said, ETH fell 10% while BMNR shares fell 3%. He also cited the largest crypto treasury equity buyback on record, with 21 million shares acquired this year. Those are the other uses of capital that sit beside Bitmine ETH purchases. A lower buying pace leaves more room for them, though the filing does not say how much.

Price swings in ETH change the value of that stack and the share price tied to it. A company that stops buying also removes one steady source of demand. Anyone weighing either should read the filings first, since this report is not advice.