Bitmine’s ETH Buying Halt Removes a Rare, Steady Demand Source
Bitmine will stop buying ETH at a 5% holding ceiling, ending a weekly‑purchase program that has propped demand since June 2025.
Ether (ETH) is about to lose one of its most consistent buyers. At TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Bitmine’s chairman Tom Lee announced the treasury firm will stop accumulating ETH once its holdings hit 5% of the circulating supply. The decision caps a buying spree that has made Bitmine one of the largest ETH holders and has supplied a rare source of steady demand during a prolonged market downturn.
According to CoinDesk, Bitmine’s holdings sit at 6,016,414 ETH – roughly 4.9% of the 122.1 million ETH in circulation – after a $41 million purchase last week. At Wednesday’s price of about $2,580 per token, that stash is worth roughly $15.5 billion. The firm says it only needs another 100,000 ETH to breach the 5% threshold, after which it will cease purchases.
What happened
Bitmine, an Ethereum‑focused digital‑asset treasury, has bought ETH every week since launching its strategy in June 2025. The company announced on Monday that it had added another $41 million worth of ETH, bringing the total to just under the 5% ceiling. Lee explained that the firm originally expected to reach the cap in five years, but it arrived in a little over a year – and in the middle of a bear market.
The firm holds $643 million in cash and marketable securities, more than twice the cash needed to buy the remaining ETH required to hit 5% at today’s price. Yet, the plan is to stop buying once the threshold is reached, regardless of the cash balance.
Why it works that way
A treasury that buys a single asset on a regular schedule creates a predictable floor of demand. Each week Bitmine placed a market order for ETH, absorbing whatever sellers were willing to offer at that moment. Because the orders were spread over time rather than a single large trade, the price impact was modest, and the market could digest the volume without major spikes.
The 5% ceiling is a self‑imposed limit that serves two purposes. First, it prevents the treasury from becoming too large relative to the total supply, which could raise concerns about market manipulation or concentration risk. Second, it provides a clear exit point: once the target is hit, the firm can pause buying and reassess its exposure without having to unwind a massive position.
Reaching 5% also matters because ETH’s supply is fixed at roughly 122 million circulating tokens. Holding 5% means controlling a sizable slice of the token’s liquidity, which can influence sentiment. Other market participants watch large holders as barometers of confidence; a steady buyer like Bitmine signals ongoing institutional interest, even when prices are low.
What changes because of it
The immediate effect is the removal of a weekly source of demand. ETH already slipped 5% over the past 24 hours, hitting its weakest level since September 20, and fell almost twice as hard as Bitcoin, which dropped $83,496.67. Without Bitmine’s regular purchases, the market may see fewer buyers stepping in during price dips, potentially amplifying volatility.
Bitmine itself faces a stark trade‑off. The treasury’s ETH position now carries about $4.5 billion in unrealized losses, meaning the firm bought at higher prices during last year’s bull run and is sitting underwater. Stopping further purchases caps the downside exposure but also locks in the loss unless the price recovers.
Other ETH holders – from retail investors to miners – could feel the impact in different ways. Retail buyers lose a stabilising force that might have softened sharp drops, while miners may see lower transaction fees if demand softens. Institutional players who were waiting for a large, disciplined buyer to re‑enter might look elsewhere, perhaps shifting capital toward other layer‑1 protocols or to the growing stable‑coin ecosystem in APAC, which the source mentions as a burgeoning area of regulated finance.
What to watch next is whether Bitmine redeploys its cash into other crypto assets, holds it for future opportunities, or simply lets the funds sit idle. If the firm decides to re‑enter the ETH market later, the re‑start could be a catalyst, especially if it comes with a new buying limit. Conversely, a prolonged pause could encourage other large‑scale investors to fill the gap, but only if they perceive enough upside.
In practice, the market will read Bitmine’s pause as a signal that even a heavyweight treasury sees limited upside at current levels. That perception may pressure ETH further in the short term, but the broader trend of institutional cash moving toward regulated stable‑coin products could offset some of the lost demand. For most ETH holders, the headline is less about a single firm’s decision and more about the shifting landscape of where large crypto capital chooses to sit.
