Bitmine Immersion (BMNR), the largest Ethereum ($ETH) treasury company, stepped up its buying pace last week, purchasing 42,197 ether ($ETH) as chairman Thomas Lee pointed to improving prospects for U.S. crypto legislation as a catalyst for the asset.
The latest purchase, worth roughly $74 million based on ether's current price of around $1,750, lifted the company's holdings to 5.74 million $ETH, according to a Monday update. The stash is now worth about $10 billion and represents 4.8% of Ethereum's circulating supply, inching closer to the firm's goal of cornering 5% of the asset's supply.
The company also held 206 bitcoin, $527 million in cash and marketable securities, plus stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings, bringing its total crypto, cash and investment holdings to $11.1 billion.
The acquisition marks an increase from the prior week's purchase of 27,084 $ETH, though it remains below the six-figure weekly buying pace BitMine maintained earlier this year.
Bitmine buys as Strategy sells
Bitmine's continued buying contrasts with a shift at Strategy (MSTR), the largest digital asset treasury and corporate bitcoin holder, which sold about $216 million worth of $BTC to raise cash. The sale marked a rare reduction in Strategy's bitcoin holdings and underscored the funding pressures the company faces amid the crypto market downturn and increased dividend obligations.
Strategy selling $BTC while Bitmine sold $BTC may have contributed to ether outperforming bitcoin through last week by 6%, even though the gains came after a near-continuous downtrend since August.
Lee, however, tied the recent strength in $ETH relative to $BTC to growing optimism that the proposed Clarity Act could become law.
“Investors have become more optimistic about the passage of the Clarity Act,” he said, noting that prediction markets now assign roughly a 50% probability to the legislation passing, the highest level in two weeks.
“We believe regulatory clarity is an important milestone, enabling crypto, particularly smart contract platforms like Ethereum, to benefit as crypto becomes part of our everyday life,” Lee said. He pointed to Ethereum layer-2 networks processing USDC transactions for companies including Shopify and Visa as examples of blockchain technology moving into mainstream payments.
The company has also staked more than 4.8 million $ETH through its MAVAN staking platform and related infrastructure, generating recurring staking income alongside its treasury strategy. At current prices, those staked holdings are worth roughly $8.5 billion.