Bitmine doubles down on ETH staking as accumulation slows down

• Ethereum treasury firm Bitmine Immersion staked an additional 596,864 ETH last week.
• The company also purchased 24,266 ETH during the period, marking its lowest weekly ETH acquisition.
• Thomas Lee argued that a failure to vote for Bitmine's proposal to increase authorized shares could slow the company's ETH purchases.

Ethereum (ETH) treasury company Bitmine Immersion (BMNR) doubled down on staking its assets last week. The firm staked an additional 596,864 ETH, bringing its total assets across staking protocols to 1.25 million ETH.

The Nevada-based firm also acquired 24,266 ETH during the period, pushing its stash to 4.16 million ETH or 3.45% of ETH's circulating supply. However, last week's acquisition represents Bitmine's lowest weekly purchase. The company's weekly ETH accumulation has reduced week-on-week over the past three weeks.

Lee urges shareholders to vote in favor of authorized share increase

In a statement on Monday, Chairman Thomas Lee urged shareholders to vote on Bitmine's proposal to increase authorized shares to 50 billion, highlighting that a failure to do so could slow down the company's ETH purchases.

"Bitmine charter has an unusual feature requiring 50.1% of all shares outstanding to support a share increase. This is an extremely high bar and thus, makes it very difficult to get an authorized share increase," said Lee. "We need to pursue this increase now as Bitmine is soon to exhaust its current 500 million authorization. And when that happens, our ETH accumulation will slow."

Asset manager Van Eck's Head of Digital Asset Research Matthew Sigel echoed a similar sentiment, arguing that Bitmine has avoided issuing shares below its market cap-to-net assets value (mNAV), while differentiating itself through share buybacks and dividend payments.

"Timing matters because we’ve seen DATs like BTBT miss the required majority/turnout on the first try, forcing reconvened meetings, uncertainty and delays that actually hurt shareholders," Sigel added in an X post on Monday. He noted that Van Eck will vote in favor of a share increase through its NODE ETF.

Bitmine also reported holdings of 192 Bitcoin (BTC), a $28 million stake in Worldcoin (WLD) treasury Eightco Holdings (ORBS), and a total cash of $988 million.

Bitmine shares are up 3% at the time of publication on Monday.