BitMine Immersion Technologies has increased its ether holdings to 5,543,872 ETH, securing 4.59% of total ether supply.

On June 8, Cointelegraph reported that BitMine bought about 127,000 ETH over the past week, moving closer to the company's target of holding 5% of total ether supply.

BitMine calls the strategy “Alchemy of 5%.” The company said it has reached 92% of its target. As of June 7, its holdings consisted of 5,543,872 ETH, 204 bitcoin, $247 million in cash, and stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings.

Of its ether holdings, 4.72 million ETH is staked through validator infrastructure. The company said it expects annualised returns of $230 million from the amount currently being staked. It also said rewards could rise to $270 million if all holdings are staked through MAVAN and other staking partners.

Amid ongoing market volatility, BitMine Chairman Tom Lee (톰 리) said advances in artificial intelligence could increase demand for public blockchains such as Ethereum. He called Ethereum “a trustworthy decentralised blockchain.”

The company’s profile has also grown. Based on CoinGecko and Yahoo Finance tallies, BitMine is the largest ether holder among 32 listed companies being tracked. That is more than six times the 868,699 ETH held by Sharplink, ranked second. After the announcement, BitMine shares rose more than 6% on June 9, but were still down about 38% since the start of the year. Its market capitalisation is about $9.59 billion.

Despite the company’s aggressive accumulation, ether price performance has been weak. Ether is down more than 43% since the start of the year, with the price falling to about $1,685 on June 9 from above $3,000 in January. Total cryptocurrency market capitalisation also fell to around $2.19 trillion from $2.69 trillion on May 9.

In this environment, some institutional investors moved to cut their portfolios. The Ethereum Foundation sold 20,000 ETH through two over-the-counter transactions in May, bringing cumulative sales this year to 25,000 ETH including a 5,000 ETH deal in March. Long-term supporters also shifted position. Bankless co-founder David Hoffman (데이비드 호프먼) said he sold all of his remaining ether holdings in May, adding that the long-argued logic of “Ethereum equals money” has been realised to a considerable extent.

Hoffman remains optimistic about the Ethereum network itself. He said a large part of future growth may not be directly reflected in the token price. He said layer-2 networks and other ecosystem participants are taking a significant share of the economic value created on the blockchain.

BitMine’s latest expansion shows that strategies by large holders are continuing even as ether prices weaken. The next focal points are whether BitMine fills the remainder of its target and whether its large-scale staking strategy leads to actual returns.