Shares of BitMine Immersion Technologies (BNMR) saw sharp price swings yesterday, Wednesday, after Kerrisdale Capital, which specializes in betting on falling stock prices, announced it had taken a negative stance on the digital asset treasury institution, describing its business model as “an approach likely to disappear.”
Key points:
- Kerrisdale Capital bet on BitMine’s stock price falling, describing its strategy of swapping shares for Ethereum-ETH as an “old approach that’s going out of style.”
- BitMine is now the largest public company holding Ethereum balances in the world, currently owning approximately 9 ETH per 1,000 shares.
- Despite criticism and accusations of stock undervaluation, BitMine’s stock price ended the session up 1.35%.
The Kerrisdale report criticized Bitmine’s strategy of selling shares to finance its purchases of the Ethereum currency (Ethereum-ETH) and increasing the balance of the currency for each share, considering that its approach no longer justifies the high valuation of the company’s shares, and the company also explained that the market value of BitMine is moving towards equality. With the current value of its digital currency holdings, it is losing its attractiveness for investments.
BitMine becomes the largest public company holding Ethereum in the world
After starting out as a traditional Bitcoin-BTC mining company, BitMine changed course earlier this year to become one of the largest Ethereum holders in the world, having amassed assets worth billions of dollars.
Kerrisdale estimated that BitMine’s balance sheet included about 9 Ethereum coins per 1,000 shares, but warned that “its approach of issuing shares to buy coin balances has reached its limits.” Despite the heavy criticism, BitMine’s share price closed 1.35% higher at $60, after recovering from an initial 5% decline to $57.41, and its value gained another 0.4% after the close.
Kerrisdale is known for targeting overvalued companies related to the crypto sector, as she previously bet on Riot Platforms’ stock price falling, in addition to the stock of Strategy, which is owned by famous investor Michael Saylor, known for his bold strategy. By buying Bitcoin.
While Riot dismissed the findings of Kersdale’s report as “inaccurate,” Strategy completely ignored the report, while Saylor continued to defend its aggressive approach to investing in Bitcoin (BTC). In its latest reports, Kersdale accuses its counterpart BitMine of diluting the value of its shares too much, pointing out that the latter has issued new shares worth $10 billion over the last 3 months.
“Every raise comes with an additional offering,” the company said in its report, describing a $365 million fundraising in September as “a gift disguised as a special offer.”
$BMNR’s premium has been falling further and further and will likely continue to bleed until it reaches NAV or less. The lower it goes, the slower the accumulation of ETH per share, until it collapses below 1. MNav is around 1.4x today, down over 40% 5/9
-Kerrisdale Capital (@KerrisdaleCap) October 8, 2025
The report also criticized its executive chairman, Tom Lee, pointing out that despite his reputation giving the company luster, “he lacks the appeal and acceptance of Michael Saylor’s personality,” adding that BitMine’s business model “needs scarcity, charisma and innovation, which are elements it does not possess.” Currently”.
Kerrisdale concluded his report by saying the bearish trade “is not a negative bet on Ethereum, but rather against the assumption that investors should pay a premium to invest in an asset they can easily purchase.”
The company explained in its following report: “If you want to own Ethereum, you can buy it directly, stake it, or invest in it through one of its exchange-traded funds (ETH ETFs), as BitMine’s role as an intermediary has gone awry. »
Institutions and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) currently hold 12.5 million ETH.
Institutional demand for Ethereum is reaching unprecedented levels, with Treasury institutions and exchange-traded funds currently holding over 12.48 million coins, or approximately 10.31% of their available supply on the blockchain.
According to data from StrategicETHReserve, FX treasury institutions hold approximately 5.66 million Ethereum coins, or approximately 4.68% of their total supply, while Ethereum Spot ETFs hold approximately 6.81 million ETH coins, or approximately 5.63% of it.
These figures reflect a clear shift in institutional focus towards Ethereum as an investment asset, similar to its counterpart Bitcoin, in recent years. In October, US ETH Spot ETFs reported net investments of $621.4 million, more than double September’s figure of $285.7 million according to SoSoValue data.
As for August, the wave of investment inflows peaked at $3.9 billion, suggesting a growing investment appetite for Ethereum. Prominent examples include SharpLink Gaming’s revelation this week that it owns 839,000 ETH coins with no debt on its balance sheet.
Post-Bear Betting Firm Kerrisdale Targets Tom Lee’s BitMine Stock, Describing Its Model as a Candidate for ‘Extinction’ appeared first on Cryptonews Arabic.
