Bitmine Immersion Technologies just went on a buying spree. The Ether treasury company snapped up another 27,000 ETH last week — roughly $43 million worth — pushing its total holdings to just over 5.7 million tokens.
That puts Bitmine at 4.7% of Ether’s total supply of 120.7 million. The company has been vocal about its goal of owning 5%, and it’s getting awfully close.
The buying spree coincided with Bitmine’s addition to the Russell 1000 Index, which tracks the largest 1,000 U.S. companies. Chairman Tom Lee called the past week “challenging” — ETH dipped 8% — but pointed to positive developments like the creation of Ethlabs and the Bank of England softening its stance on stablecoins.
Here’s why the Russell 1000 matters: mutual funds, ETFs, and pension funds that track the index are now required to buy Bitmine stock. Lee previously estimated that up to 25% of a newly added stock’s market cap ends up held by passive index funds. That’s a wave of institutional demand hitting a crypto company.
Bitmine isn’t alone in the index shuffle. Sharplink, Forward Industries, crypto exchange Gemini, and Galaxy Digital also got added to the broader Russell 3000 on Friday.
BMNR shares gained 1.7% Monday to close at $13.80, though the stock is still down 9% over the past week, tracking Ether’s decline.
