BitMine Immersion Technologies staked 342,560 ETH, valued at over $1 billion, in a concentrated two-day operation that tightened Ethereum’s liquid supply and extended the validator entry queue. Lookonchain-linked on-chain tracking frames the move as part of a broader corporate shift toward staking ETH to generate yield, with immediate impact on network liquidity dynamics.
The deposits pushed the validator entry queue to 12 days and 20 hours, with 739,824 ETH waiting to be staked, while the exit queue sat at 6 days and 2 hours with 349,867 ETH queued for withdrawal. With roughly twice as much ETH waiting to enter staking as to exit, the imbalance reduces immediately sellable float and tightens available liquidity for traders and corporate treasuries.
Tom Lee(@fundstrat)'s #Bitmine continues moving $ETH into staking.
Over the past 2 days, #Bitmine has staked 342,560 $ETH($1B).https://t.co/P684j5YQaGhttps://t.co/pXHT9mCPUC pic.twitter.com/0Y9XBShQzI
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) December 28, 2025
Queue mechanics turn staking into a near-term liquidity lever
Queue length is not just a technical detail; it is the timetable that governs how quickly supply can re-enter the market. The exit queue is the backlog that determines how long validators must wait to withdraw staked ETH, which creates a temporary liquidity constraint for participants seeking to unstake. In practical terms, longer queues can suppress near-term liquid supply by slowing the path from “staked” back to “tradable.”
The corporate staking trend appears broader than a single treasury decision. On-chain reporting cited alongside this development indicates other firms, including SharpLink Gaming and The Ether Machine, have also staked significant portions of their treasuries, with SharpLink’s reported staking rewards reaching 9,701 ETH (approximately $29 million).
Treasury scale, yield math, and the infrastructure buildout
BitMine’s scale is unusually large relative to the network’s supply. The company is described as holding roughly 4.06 million ETH—about 3.37% of total supply—and positioning staking within an “Alchemy of 5%” accumulation strategy. Under current conditions, base staking yields are cited at 3%–5% APY, and the text provides a worked example. At a 3.12% rate, BitMine’s reported holdings could generate roughly 126,800 ETH annually (about $371 million), with MEV potentially adding an additional 10%–30% to rewards in some estimates. MEV is described here as the extra profit validators can capture by optimizing transaction ordering.
To manage the operational complexity of staking at scale, BitMine is building dedicated infrastructure. The firm has developed an institutional staking stack called MAVAN, scheduled for deployment in early 2026, to optimize returns and manage validator performance. The broader balance-sheet context adds a risk overlay. BitMine’s total crypto and cash assets are reported at $11.2–$14.2 billion, but aggressive accumulation is also said to have produced unrealized losses of about $3.7 billion, alongside a $1 billion share buyback intended to address perceived valuation gaps.
Staking yields come with trade-offs that matter more as position size increases. The risks cited include illiquidity while ETH is in the staking queue, slashing penalties tied to validator misbehavior or extended downtime, smart-contract and custodial vulnerabilities, and evolving regulatory compliance requirements. Slashing is explicitly defined as a network-enforced penalty that can reduce a validator’s stake for infractions such as double signing or prolonged inactivity, making uptime and configuration discipline central to the operating model.
BitMine’s billion-dollar stake is a clear signal of how corporate treasuries are weighing yield versus liquidity. By prioritizing staking returns over immediate tradability, large holders can tighten liquid float and influence validator-ecosystem dynamics, a pattern that may persist as more corporate treasuries adopt staking strategies.
