Bitmine just spent almost $400 million buying back its own shares in 2026, more than 16 times the $24 million of Ether it added in the same week. The pivot shows even the world's largest Ether treasury now sees more value in its own stock than in fresh ETH while crypto prices fall.
Key points:
- Bitmine added 10,452 ETH, taking its holdings to 6,051,933 ETH, or 4.95% of all Ether supply.
- The bigger move was a share buyback: 2.04 million shares in one week, part of a $399.6 million buyback total in 2026.
- Chairman Tom Lee calls it the largest buyback ever by a crypto treasury firm, and says a crypto bull market is underway.
The Ether purchase itself kept a weekly streak alive. Bitmine added 10,452 ETH worth roughly $24 million, lifting its total to 6,051,933 ETH, worth about $14.3 billion at a reference price of $2,356 per coin. That is 4.95% of Ethereum's 122.2 million token supply, leaving the firm, by its own count, 99% of the way to its goal of owning 5% of the network, a target it brands the "Alchemy of 5%." Lee has said Bitmine will stop buying once it hits that threshold.
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The buyback is where the real money went. In the past week alone, Bitmine repurchased 2.04 million of its own shares at an average price of $22.48, bringing its 2026 total to 22.9 million shares bought back for about $399.6 million. Lee framed the buybacks as a value play, saying the company intends to repurchase stock "accretively" when management views the shares as undervalued. The message is simple: Buybacks come first while prices fall.
What happens next?
For traders, the signal is bigger than one company. Strategy leaned the same way this week, pausing its Bitcoin buying for the first time since mid-September to spend $204.9 million buying back its STRC preferred stock. Both treasury giants are now favoring their own shares over fresh crypto purchases. Lee again cast recent weakness as a buying opportunity rather than a warning sign, arguing the pullback came from the same risk-off forces behind a broader AI selloff. He noted ETH had fallen 13% from its recent peak while US semiconductor stocks dropped 20% over the same stretch, which he said was further evidence "a crypto bull market is underway."
Traders should now watch three things. First, whether Bitmine hits its 5% Ether goal and stops buying, as Lee has promised. Second, whether the buybacks continue at this pace, since 5,227,037 ETH, about 86% of its holdings, is already staked through its MAVAN platform, with projected annualized staking revenue of roughly $318 million. Third, whether other treasury firms copy the pivot. Counting cash, other tokens and what it calls "moonshot" investments, Bitmine's total holdings stood at $15 billion as of October 25, including 215 Bitcoin, $514 million in cash and marketable securities, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries and a $76 million position in Eightco Holdings. The risk is plain: if Ether keeps falling, buybacks may not lift the share price, and a treasury that stops buying removes one of the market's steadiest bids.
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— BitByLine News Desk
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Sources: Decrypt, CoinDesk, The Block