ETH, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum ecosystem, rose 0.95% during Friday’s U.S. market hours to trade at $2,312. The buying pressure gained its current momentum following the traditional U.S. stock market as indices like S&P500 and NasDaq hit new high. The coin price gained additional momentum from the steady buying pressure from treasury firms like BitMine . After relentless buying the company is close to its self claimed target of owning 5% of all Ethereum in existence. Once achieved, will BitMine go silent in accumulation of more ETH and how it may impact Ethereum price. Origin of the Strategy BitMine’s Ethereum obsession began on a high note. The company has closed a $250 million private placement that it used to instantly invest in ETH, doubling its stake within days of closing. Thomas “Tom” Lee, a founder of the Fundstrat, is the architect behind this and has been chairman of BitMine, the public face of the Ethereum believers. Lee’s thesis was simple yet brave: copy the MicroStrategy Bitcoin, but this time with Ethereum. MicroStrategy’s continuous Bitcoin buying fueled its growth into what analysts described as a “sovereign put”: If a nation-state wanted to buy 5% of the Bitcoin network, it would find it easiest to purchase MSTR. Lee said that the same could happen for ETH as it did for Bitcoin, which he called the “Wall Street put.” For any institutional level exposure to Ethereum that could be meaningful, you would eventually have to go through BitMine. The 5% Target and the Buying Machine The number “5%” has never been a random figure. It was the tipping point that Lee and BitMine had determined their investments would become strategically significant enough for sovereign wealth funds, Wall Street institutions and nation-states to care about. Today, BitMine holds more than 4.29% of the total Ethereum circulating supply of 120.7 million tokens, and says it is 82% the way to the milestone. The pace of buying has been staggering. The company alone has purchased 71,524 ETH during the past week, the highest single-week purchase since December 2025. At this rate, the 5% finish line isn’t far away. It’s just a matter of weeks. BitMine Is Becoming Ethereum’s MicroStrategy Markets are based on supply and demand and BitMine has been an amazing, reliable demand. The firm has been coming into the market week after week with hundreds of millions of dollars in buy orders, making it what traders call a “persistent bid,” or a known, recurring buyer that sets a floor under the price. This is no hypothetical scenario. The purchase of Bitcoin by MicroStrategy was largely responsible for setting a psychological and structural support level for BTC, during an accumulation period. For ETH, BitMine has done the same. In addition to the raw buying BitMine also debuted MAVAN, the Made in American Validator Network, an institutional-grade staking platform. Much of its ETH is already locked up, taken out of circulation and not available to be sold. Staking on this scale not only keeps price up, it actually constricts supply. Ethereum’s Biggest Buyer Is About to Exit Here is where the story gets complicated. When BitMine reaches 5% it will switch from accumulation to stewardship as per its mandate. The buying machine switches off. This presents a new challenge for the ETH market as its biggest recurring customer vanished suddenly. Such a pattern exists in financial markets and there’s no fun in any of the examples. The end of quantitative easing programs by central banks is almost always followed by volatility. Large rebalancing events in major index funds are correlated with stocks reverting a portion of their gains. The mechanism is the same here. ETH’s price has somewhat factored into BitMine’s buying schedule. Once that pace slows down, the market will have to work hard to fill the demand shortfall, and it is not certain they will be willing to pay the same price.
