On BitMine's balance sheet there are already 6.04 million ETH, or 4.9% of the total supply. Simply put, almost every twentieth Ethereum coin sits in a single corporate treasury. BitMine trades in the US under the ticker BMNR; its model is to hold crypto on its balance sheet instead of cash, as Strategy does with Bitcoin.
Behind the strategy is Tom Lee - co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat (an independent Wall Street research firm), and chairman of BitMine's board of directors. He publicly stated: once the share reaches 5%, purchases will stop. In the same place he cited a target of $25,000 per ETH in this cycle - that is his personal opinion, not a market fact.
What this means in practice: about 0.1% of supply remains until the announced threshold - on the order of a hundred thousand coins. At last week's pace (12.5 thousand ETH), such a volume is accumulated in roughly two months, after which one of the most prominent constant buyers of ETH, by his own promise, leaves the market.
It is precisely this moment that matters for a trader. While corporate treasuries are building a position, part of the supply leaves the exchanges and does not participate in trading. When purchases stop, this support from below disappears, and demand has to be provided by someone else - funds, retail, or speculators.
Are you in ETH with a deposit of a couple thousand?
A large holder builds a position over years and calmly - he has the balance sheet for it. For a private trader the problem is not the analysis: he plays out the very same idea with a sum where a move of 20% turns into dinner at a cafe. What closes the gap is not the accuracy of the forecast, but access to a large notional: in prop trading you pass a challenge and get the company's account to trade, without comparable capital of your own. Understanding the mechanics is cheaper now than on the next strong ETH move.