BitMine Immersion (BMNR), the most important Ethereum-focused digital asset treasury (DAT) agency and helmed by Wall Road veteran Thomas Lee, is sitting on steep unrealized losses on its large wager on ether ETH$2,749.31.
The agency reported Friday $328 million in internet earnings for its fiscal yr ended August 31, whereas totally diluted earnings per share got here in at $13.39. It additionally declared a nominal dividend of $0.01 per share and introduced plans to launch a staking infrastructure product, MAVAN (Made-in America Validator Community), in early 2026.
Regardless of the constructive headline earnings, Markus Thielen, founding father of 10x Analysis, warned that the corporate, in addition to different DATs, face deep structural points.
The agency is now estimated to be sitting on over $4 billion in unrealized losses on its holdings following a forty five% decline in ETH costs for the reason that August peak. BMNR’s inventory worth plunged 84% from its July peak, with the drawdown erasing the online asset worth (NAV) premium that when fueled investor enthusiasm, Thielen famous.
Thielen argued that many Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies depend on complicated and layered entities equivalent to asset managers, strategic advisors and promotional figureheads with excessive paychecks whereas embedding charges that “quietly erode returns.”
He identified that BitMine’s management compensation and exterior advisors may extract $157 million per yr over 10 years by means of compensation and advisory contracts.
Ether’s staking yield, a key income supply on the crypto holdings, does not look that compelling to buyers, Thielen famous. In keeping with the CESR Composite Ether Staking Price, ether’s staking yield is at the moment at round 2.9%, which is way under U.S. greenback cash market fund yield that is thought of risk-free. As soon as operational prices and intermediaries are accounted for, the efficient yield to shareholders is way decrease, Thielen mentioned.
“No severe institutional allocator will settle for” that yield, Thielen mentioned, particularly with when ETH’s “worth volatility places the underlying collateral at fixed danger.”
Thielen warned that DATs may entice shareholders, particularly because the NAV premium collapses. “Traders discover themselves trapped within the construction, unable to get out with out important injury — a real Resort California state of affairs,” he mentioned.
