The largest corporate ETH holder started 2026 with a $105 million Ether purchase, while surpassing $2.87 billion in staked Ether, seeking to generate passive yield on its holdings.
BitMine Immersion Technologies, the largest known corporate holder of ether, resumed purchases of the cryptocurrency in the new year, signaling continued confidence in Ethereum even as some analysts expect near-term price weakness.
BitMine bought $105 million worth of Ether (ETH) in its first reported acquisitions of the new year, according to a Wednesday X post from blockchain data platform Arkham.
The treasury company now holds 4.07 million Ether worth $12.6 billion, representing 3.36% of the ETH supply, according to data from the StrategicEthReserve.
BitMine still holds $915 million in total cash reserves, according to its latest update on Monday, which may be used to acquire more ETH as the company pushes towards its strategic goal of amassing 5% of the supply.
Related: Morgan Stanley adds Ethereum staking ETF filing to growing crypto lineup
The latest purchases follow a sharp increase in BitMine’s staking activity. Blockchain data tracked by Lookonchain shows the company has staked more than $2.87 billion worth of ether, including about 128,000 tokens added in recent days.
The $105 million investment signals confidence in Ether’s long-term price appreciation, despite expectations of a local bottom in the first part of 2026, according to Tom Lee, the chairman of BitMine and the co-founder and managing partner of Fundstrat Global Advisors.
Lee predicted a “meaningful drawdown” to around $1,800 for Ether during the first half of the year, a level that would present “attractive opportunities into year-end,” he wrote in an internal note shared on social media.
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Whales, or large cryptocurrency investors, have also been increasing their spot Ether exposure, according to crypto intelligence platform Nansen.
Whales bought $11.2 million Ether across 38 wallets during the past week, while fresh wallets bought a cumulative $1.16 billion. However, smart money traders have offloaded $9.48 million during the same period, according to Nansen.
Meanwhile, the 2025 crypto bear market proved to be a necessary “stress test” for institutional entrants waiting to allocate into the emerging industry, according to Jimmy Xue, co-founder and chief operating officer of Axis, an onchain quantitative yield platform managing $100 million in live capital.
“The repricing wasn’t just about valuations but about repricing risk. The industry has embraced real-time verification and compliant infrastructure, and barriers for institutions are reducing,” Xue told Cointelegraph, adding:
“2026 may not be a retail frenzy, but we should see migration of liquidity where crypto finally functions as the backend for global finance.”
Jamie Coutts, the chief crypto analyst at Real Vision, also saw the past year’s poor altcoin performance as a “repricing” of the leading blockchain protocols by their fundamental value and network adoption, as the “multi-year onboarding of institutional capital commences.”
