BitMine, led by chairman Tom Lee, has staked nearly $1.6 billion worth of Ethereum in the past week, moving a significant portion of its holdings into network validation and yield-generating contracts.
On January 2, the company deposited an additional 82,560 ETH into staking protocols, according to blockchain data compiled by Lookonchain. That brings BitMines total staked position to about 544,064 ETH, or roughly 13% of its 4.07 million ETH treasury.
By locking up more than half a million ETH in the consensus layer, BitMine is shifting from a passive holder to an active validator, turning its balance sheet into an income-producing asset base.
The staking push comes as BitMine seeks shareholder approval for a sweeping overhaul of its capital structure. In a January 2 post on X, Lee proposed increasing the companys authorized share count from 500 million to 50 billion.
Lee has framed the hundredfold jump as a way to enable future stock splits and keep the trading price near $25. But the large authorization would also give BitMine extensive room to raise capital through At-The-Market equity offerings, selling new shares to finance additional Ethereum purchases.
Such a strategy would allow the company to capitalize on any premium of its share price over the net asset value of its holdings, though it could dilute existing shareholders.
Lee has outlined highly bullish scenarios for Ethereum, suggesting the token could eventually reach $250,000, driven by the financial sectors embrace of blockchain-based tokenization.
We believe Ethereum is the future of finance. A supercycle driven by Wall Street re-engineering on the blockchain, Lee said, citing comments from major financial executives who have described tokenization as the next evolution of global markets and noting that most tokenization activity today is occurring on Ethereum.
At those projected valuations, BitMine calculates that its implied share price could climb to around $5,000, which it argues would require stock splits of up to 100-for-1 to keep the shares accessible to retail investors.