Tom Lee's BitMine to begin offering annual dividend as ETH treasury mNAV dips

The largest Ethereum treasury company, BitMine Immersion Technologies, said it will become "the first large-cap crypto company to declare an annual dividend," as the firm posts its first earnings report since the crypto market pullback in the second half of the year that has seen digital asset treasuries struggle.

BitMine will offer an annual dividend of $0.01 per BMNR share. The stock is trading around $26.49, up slightly on the day, but down significantly from a yearly high watermark of $135 set in early July, shortly after the firm announced its ETH acquisition strategy, according to The Block’s price page.

The dividend, payable on Dec. 29, is BitMine's latest attempt to return shareholder value through traditional equities engineering. In July, the firm became one of the first DATs to approve a share buyback plan to supplement its ongoing ETH purchases.

Backed by leading investors including ARK's Cathie Wood, DCG, Founders Fund, Galaxy Digital, Pantera, and individual investors like Wall Street titans Bill Miller III and Tom Lee, BitMine is the second-largest crypto treasury firm after Strategy, and by far the largest public ETH-focused DAT.

The firm recorded $328 million in net income for its fiscal year ending Aug. 31, equating to $13.39 in fully diluted earnings per share, according to Friday's release. It holds nearly $10 billion worth of ETH — 3.55 million tokens purchased at an average price of around $3,120.

Negative mNAV

ETH is trading around $2,730 on Friday, according to The Block's data, indicating BitMine’s multiple to Net Asset Value (mNAV) has fallen below 1.0x. With ETH sitting near multi-month lows, the company sits on an unrealized loss of roughly $4.52 billion.

A representative for a competing ETH treasury firm, the Ether Machine, told The Block that the outlook for crypto DATs that acquired tokens via at-the-money issuances is "grim."

"The way in which BitMine (BMNR) and Sharplink (SBET) have raised over $10B to buy more ETH over the last 6 months is a capital lever that breaks under the market conditions we find ourselves in now, leaving retail shareholders effectively exposed to a greater loss than if they just purchased ETH," the representative said.

According to Ether Machine’s calculations, "an August BMNR purchaser is down ~73%, compared to an outright ETH purchaser during that time frame, who would be down ~30%," considering that ETH was above $4,000 for much of that month.

Of course, BitMine is far from the only DAT to decline in value amid a weakening crypto market. The Block reportedly earlier Friday that the combined market capitalization of crypto treasury firms has plunged from $176 billion in July to roughly $99 billion today.

Despite BMNR’s performance, BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said the firm is "well positioned in 2026." BMNR is down nearly 50% over the past 30 days, though still up about 258% year-to-date.

The firm’s staking solution — dubbed the Made in America Validator Network, or MAVAN — will debut in the first quarter, boosting the firm’s mining operations. BitMine noted it operates Bitcoin mining operations in Trinidad and Texas.