Bitmine (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, stepped up its ether (ETH) purchases last week, making its largest weekly purchase in 2026 as cryptocurrency prices fell.
The company purchased 126,971 ETH over the past week, worth about $214 million at current prices, Bitmine said Monday, up from 26,497 tokens the week before and nearly 120,000 ETH the week before that.
This purchase brought the company’s total holdings to 5.54 million ETH, worth approximately $9.3 billion at current prices, according to the report. The company also held $247 million in cash, bitcoin and stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings.
The acquisition marks a reversal from the company’s previous call to slow accumulation as it nears its goal of monopolizing 5% of the bumper supply of ether. The company now holds 4.59% of the token supply and is expected to reach the 5% target later this year.
“We increased our purchases because we believe this pullback in ETH prices does not reflect the strengthening fundamentals of Ethereum,” Bitmine President Thomas Lee said in a statement.
Bitmine has remained one of the few major digital asset treasury companies to continue to actively increase its crypto holdings, while most of its peers have halted buying and turned to selling as crypto prices have declined sharply since October. This bet is based on paper losses estimated at $9.6 billion as ETH fell to its lowest price in over a year, down about 65% from its August record.
The company also revealed plans to issue a dividend-paying preferred stock class to raise more funds, taking a cue from the Bitcoin-centric playbook.
This model, however, has come under intense scrutiny from investors. Investors are now wondering whether Strategy will be able to comfortably pay its dividend obligations or shore up its liquidity as Bitcoin prices fell sharply last week. STRC, the company’s latest preferred stock class, fell to $90 on Friday, about 10% below its par value, underscoring those concerns.
