Ethereum giant Bitmine now makes $164 million a year without doing anything

Bitmine, the publicly traded company with the largest Ethereum reserve in the world, is starting to make its enormous ETH supply work harder and harder for it. Since the end of December, the company has been deploying part of its Ethereum (ETH) for staking for the first time. This already generates an estimated $164 million per year.

2.81% Ethereum-rent

Yesterday you could read in the Ethereum news that the American company Bitmine had purchased an additional 40,302 Ether last week. This means there are now 4,243,338 ETH on the balance sheet, worth $21 billion. It represents 3.52 percent of all Ether in circulation, but the big goal is to get 5 percent.

In the same press release it was announced that almost half of the total stock is now being staked. This concerns 2,009,267 ETH that is fixed to secure the network.

Ethereum has been running on a proof-of-stake mechanism since 2022. This means that not miners, but validators keep the blockchain running. Those who stake Ether help monitor transactions and receive rewards in the form of new ETH.

Bitmine does not do this itself, but works together with several professional staking parties that arrange the technical side. The Ether remains from Bitmine, but is deployed on the Ethereum network via these parties.

According to Bitmine, the current annual yield is currently around 2.81 percent. That doesn’t seem like much, but with more than 2 million ETH staked it adds up. At the current Ethereum price, that amounts to approximately $164 million per year.

Last summer, Bitmine bought its first Ethers and a first batch was staked last November. The company, which is originally a Bitcoin miner, believes that Ethereum will play a central role in the financial system of the future.

This is what happens when everything is stopped

According to chairman Tom Lee, this is just the beginning. If Bitmine were to eventually discontinue its entire ETH supply, annual revenue would rise to around $374 million. That’s more than $1 million per day in additional revenue purely from network rewards.

By 2026, Bitmine wants to set up its own validator infrastructure in the United States. This would allow it to take full control of the strike and become less dependent on external parties. That can further improve margins.