decrypt.co
In brief
- BitMine added another $92 million in $ETH a week after completing its preferred equity offering.
- The firm now holds more than 4.7% of the $ETH circulating supply and is 94% of the way to its goal of 5% of the circulating supply.
- Shares of BMNR are a touch higher in early trading on Monday on the back of $ETH's 24-hour jump.
Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies reached 4.7% of the circulating supply, adding another $92 million in $ETH to its balance sheet last week.
The firm bolstered its balance sheet with 52,203 $ETH and now maintains 5,672,956 $ETH valued around $10 billion and 205 Bitcoin worth around $13.3 million.
"The best years for crypto remain ahead, in our view,” said Chairman Tom Lee in a statement.
“Tokenization and the rapid progress in AI are expected to drive exponential demand growth for blockchain and decentralized crypto," he added. (Disclaimer: Lee is an investor in Dastan, Decrypt’s parent company).
Its latest acquisition coincided with the start of trading for the firm’s dividend-paying preferred equity offering—BMNP, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week. After opening at $85 per share, BMNP is recently changing hands at $88.34, up around 1.7% in early trading on Monday.
BitMine priced and completed the offering earlier this month, ultimately raising around $274 million in proceeds to help acquire more Ethereum and build out its staking infrastructure. Staking involves the pledging of assets to a blockchain network—in this case, Ethereum—in order to help validate transactions and secure the network. In exchange, users who stake their $ETH receive newly minted $ETH as rewards, ranging between 1.7% and 3.2% APY.
The preferred equity offering follows in the footsteps of Bitcoin behemoth Strategy, who similarly uses a dividend-paying preferred equity offering—STRC—to generate cash for additional Bitcoin purchases.
Strategy’s STRC has been under immense scrutiny of late, falling more than 10% from its par value of $100 per share, as investors showcase skepticism about how the firm will continue to fund dividend payments.
Unlike Strategy though, BitMine may fund its dividend payments through its $ETH staking income. As it stands, the firm now stakes more than 4.7 million $ETH or around 83% of its total holdings via its Made in America Validator Network.
When it completes the staking of its entire treasury, it projects around $268 million in revenue on an annualized basis, according to Lee.
The price of Bitmine stock, which trades as BMNR, is up 0.4% on Monday, recently changing hands at $16.22. Meanwhile, Ethereum jumped 1.6% in the last 24 hours, trading around $1,752.
Both remain significantly off their recent high marks, with BMNR nearly 90% off its 52-week high of $161 and $ETH 64% off its August high of $4,946.