BitMine Immersion Technologies shifted part of its ETH treasury into protocol-native yield by staking roughly $1 billion worth of Ether over two days. By routing a large tranche of ETH into staking contracts, the company is repositioning treasury management around recurring staking income and reduced circulating float.
On-chain tracking shows a rapid sequence of concentrated deposits, including an initial 74,880 ETH transfer (about $219 million) and a later 79,296 ETH tranche (about $232 million), culminating in 342,560 ETH staked in short order. With total ETH holdings now reported above 4 million ETH—about 3.37% of network supply—CEO Tom Lee’s “Alchemy of 5%” framing signals an explicit pivot from passive holdings to yield-bearing deployment.
Tom Lee(@fundstrat)'s #Bitmine continues moving $ETH into staking.
Over the past 2 days, #Bitmine has staked 342,560 $ETH($1B).https://t.co/P684j5YQaGhttps://t.co/pXHT9mCPUC pic.twitter.com/0Y9XBShQzI
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) December 28, 2025
Staking mechanics and BitMine’s operating model
BitMine is not staking the entire treasury, keeping a portion liquid while building internal staking capability. The company is preserving liquidity optionality while scaling institutional-grade infrastructure to support a larger staking footprint over time. It plans to launch a proprietary Made-in-America Validator Network (MAVAN) in Q1 2026 to optimize validator performance and tighten custody controls for institutional staking operations.
Ethereum staking yields are typically described in the 3%–5% annual range, with execution-layer rewards and MEV potentially increasing realized returns. Institutional-grade MEV strategies are cited as adding an estimated 10%–30% to staking income in some models, creating meaningful variability in realized yield outcomes. In one scenario, staking a full treasury could generate about 126,800 ETH in annual rewards, estimated at roughly $371 million at the prevailing levels referenced in the data.
Risk, compliance, and market impact
Large-scale corporate staking introduces real liquidity and operational constraints, especially during volatility. BitMine is reported to be carrying approximately $3.7 billion in unrealized losses, and staking-related withdrawal delays can become a liquidity bottleneck if market conditions deteriorate quickly. Operationally, validator error or misconduct can trigger slashing, even if the risk is mitigated by strong institutional performance benchmarks.
Operational risk mitigation is being framed around institutional reliability metrics. Institutional providers are cited as having achieved 99.9% participation rates in 2025 with no major slashing incidents, a performance point used to argue that enterprise staking can be run with high continuity. Even with strong uptime, the combination of leverage-like exposure to price moves and constrained liquidity windows remains a core risk variable that treasury teams must actively manage.
This move also sits inside a broader corporate staking trend that is tightening liquid supply. Other public firms—including SharpLink Gaming, Bit Digital, and The Ether Machine—are described as routing substantial ETH holdings into staking, with SharpLink reporting $29 million in rewards after staking most of its treasury. Collectively, these deployments have pushed the staked share of ETH supply to over 28%, reinforcing security and decentralization metrics while reducing circulating availability.
BitMine’s roughly $1 billion ETH staking initiative reflects a strategic shift toward protocol-backed yield while introducing liquidity, operational, and regulatory trade-offs that scale with treasury size.