How Bitmine could surpass its 5% Ethereum goal without buying more ETH

Bitmine is still buying Ethereum, even as staking may make further purchases unnecessary to reach its 5% ownership target.The Nasdaq-listed treasury company disclosed that it acquired 53,501 ETH in the week through Aug. 30, taking its holdings to 5.9 million tokens. More than 5.06 million ETH were already staked at an annualized seven-day yield of 2.67%.The buying appears to have continued almost immediately.On Sept. 1, blockchain analysis platform Lookonchain said wallets linked to Bitmine appeared to acquire another 51,000 ETH worth about $126 million from FalconX and BitGo. Bitmine had not formally confirmed that transaction in its latest corporate disclosure.If the on-chain attribution is correct and the transfer represents an incremental purchase, Bitmine would hold roughly 5.95 million ETH. That would leave it considerably closer to its publicly stated goal of owning 5% of Ethereum.Yet the size of the company’s existing position means buying may no longer be the only way to get there.Bitmine had 5,067,309 ETH staked as of Aug. 30. Holding that balance and the disclosed yield constant would produce roughly 135,000 ETH in staking rewards over a modeled year.At that scale, staki...