BitMine adds $49 million in ETH as Robinhood Chain activity grows

BitMine Immersion Technologies has bought another $49 million of Ethereum, adding to one of the largest corporate bets on ETH. For everyday investors, the move ties BitMine’s stock even more closely to Ethereum’s price and to the broader case that ETH can be used as financial infrastructure, not just a tradable token.

The publicly traded Ethereum treasury company purchased 27,801 ETH last week, according to the company figures cited by Decrypt. BitMine now holds 5,770,038 ETH, equal to nearly 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply.

At an ETH price of about $1,780 on Monday, that position was valued at roughly $10.1 billion, according to Decrypt. Ethereum was trading down about 2% over the previous 24 hours and up about 1.3% over the prior week.

Why Robinhood Chain is part of the pitch

BitMine Chairman Tom Lee pointed to early activity on Robinhood Chain, Robinhood’s Ethereum layer-2 network, as evidence that Ethereum is finding real-world use. A layer-2 network is a blockchain built to process transactions more cheaply or quickly while relying on a larger base chain for security or settlement.

Robinhood Chain is built on Arbitrum, finalizes on Ethereum and uses ETH as its native gas token, according to Decrypt. Gas is the fee users pay to send transactions or use apps on a blockchain.

Lee said in a statement that Robinhood Chain’s July 1 mainnet debut was one of crypto’s biggest success stories of 2026. He said dollar volume had already topped $1 billion and argued that the network’s activity showed Ethereum’s utility and product-market fit. Product-market fit means users are adopting a product in a way that suggests it solves a real demand.

Lee also said Robinhood’s 27 million users are paying crypto fees in ETH, adding that everyday users are beginning to view ETH as money. Decrypt noted that Lee is an investor in Dastan, its parent company.

The volume data is more mixed

DeFi Llama data cited by Decrypt showed decentralized exchange, or DEX, volume on Robinhood Chain exceeded $3 billion over the past week. A DEX is a crypto trading venue that lets users swap tokens directly through blockchain-based software rather than through a traditional intermediary.

That activity still trailed larger networks. DeFi Llama data showed Ethereum recorded $7.27 billion of DEX volume over the same period, while Solana posted $12.34 billion.

Token Terminal data cited by Decrypt showed Robinhood Chain had 788,000 active addresses so far. Active addresses are blockchain wallets that have interacted with a network, though they do not necessarily equal individual users because one person can control multiple wallets.

Robinhood Chain has also drawn speculative trading. Decrypt reported that one early meme coin trader on the network turned $85 into more than $2 million in paper gains, meaning the profit was based on market value rather than necessarily realized cash.

BitMine shares lag ETH

BitMine’s latest ETH purchase has not translated into short-term stock outperformance. Shares of BitMine, which trade under the ticker BMNR, fell 5.7% over the previous five trading days, according to Decrypt.

The stock was trading near $14.65 shortly after Monday’s opening bell, down more than 2.2% from the start of the session. For investors watching treasury-style crypto companies, the key read-through is straightforward: BitMine’s balance sheet is increasingly exposed to ETH, while its share price can still move differently from the token itself.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.