Ethereum finance company Bitmine has begun staking its Ether holdings and depositing nearly $219 million price of ETH into Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system.
On Sunday, several Bitmine-linked wallets sent large Ether (ETH) transfers to a contract called “BatchDeposit,” on-chain data from Arkham shows. The transfers totaled 74,880 ETH, a pattern typically related to institutional staking setups where funds are pooled before a validator is created.
“The largest Ethereum finance company Bitmine (BMNR) has finally began attempting to stake its held ETH to earn interest income,” EmberCN said in a post on X.
“This is their first stake, they usually now hold 4.066 million ETH, with an approximate APR of three.12%. If all of this were staked, they might earn about 126,800 ETH in interest over the course of a 12 months, which could be price $371 million at the present price of $2,927,” the Onchain analyst said.
Bitmine sends ETH to the PoS staking address. Source: EmberCN
Bitmine's Ether holdings exceed 4 million tokens
The deposits come as Bitmine's Ether holdings surpassed the 4 million token mark for the primary time. The company confirmed earlier this week that its holdings now exceed 4.06 million ETH following its recent $40 million purchase.
Over the past week, Bitmine has added almost 100,000 ETH to its balance at a mean purchase price of $2,991 per token.
In November, Bitmine announced that it plans to start staking Ether in the primary quarter of 2026 through a dedicated internal setup called Made-in America Validator Network (MAVAN). At the time, the corporate announced that it had chosen three institutional staking providers for a pilot program, using a small portion of its ETH to check performance, security and operational quality before scaling.
Ethereum TVL could increase 10x in 2026
According to Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of Sharplink Gaming, Ethereum's total value locked (TVL) could increase tenfold in 2026 as institutional participation increases and recent on-chain use cases gain traction. Sharplink is the second-largest public holder of Ethereum treasuries, with nearly 798,000 ETH, price about $2.33 billion.
Citing stablecoins as a key driver, Chalom predicted the market will reach $500 billion by the tip of next 12 months, up about 62% from current levels. With greater than half of stablecoin activity already happening on Ethereum, continued issuance and transaction growth could significantly increase the network’s TVL.
