Can Ether’s price reclaim $2,000 and beyond? Bitmine's slowdown puts rally to the test

Ether (ETH) has spent July climbing steadily from June's $1,450 low to a current range near $1,870 to $1,930, right at the doorstep of the $1,900 to $2,000 resistance zone that has capped every rally attempt since the October 2025 slide. 

This week, the market's answer to ‘what happens next’ got more complicated. Bitmine Immersion Technologies — the largest corporate holder of ETH in the world — disclosed that it slashed its weekly purchases to a fraction of its usual pace, choosing to redirect capital toward buying back its own stock instead.

Bitmine's pivot from accumulation to buyback

Against a promising price picture, Bitmine's July 20 disclosure landed as a surprise. The company added just 7,430 ETH — worth roughly $14 million — over the past week, one of its smallest weekly purchases since launching its ETH treasury strategy in June 2025. 

The contrast is stark: Bitmine bought more than 111,000 ETH in a single week as recently as May.

Bitmine's total holdings now stand at 5,777,468 ETH, equal to 4.8% of ETH's 120.7 million circulating supply and worth approximately $11.5 billion, putting the company 96% of the way toward its stated ‘alchemy of 5%’ target. 

Chairman Tom Lee was direct about the reasoning behind the slowdown: "The reduced pace of buys reflects that Bitmine repurchased 5.5 million common shares." The company bought back those shares at an average price of $15.62 under a buyback program that has been expanded from $1 billion to $4 billion in total authorisation this year.

BMNR stock has fallen roughly 60% over the past 12 months even as the company's ETH treasury has grown into one of the largest in the world. But the slowdown doesn't reduce Bitmine's existing exposure to ETH: 4.92 million tokens, or about 85% of its holdings, remain staked through the company's MAVAN validator platform, generating a projected $247 million in annualised revenue regardless of how quickly new purchases continue.

What Bitmine's slowdown could mean for ETH demand

Bitmine had been one of the single largest, most consistent sources of ETH buy pressure through the first half of 2026. A drop from a weekly pace of 111,000 tokens to 7,430 represents a significant demand dip from one specific, price-insensitive buyer, just as ETH tests a critical resistance level.

Spot ETH ETFs pulled in $84.42 million in the week ending July 11 — the first positive week after eight consecutive weeks of outflows — and followed that with $105 million the week after, led by BlackRock's ETHA fund. Two consecutive positive weeks after a two-month drought may pose a meaningful early signal, though not yet proof of a durable trend on its own.

Other treasury buyers are also stepping back in. SharpLink Gaming resumed ETH purchases after a prior pause, adding to a position that now exceeds 876,000 ETH. Bitmine and SharpLink, alongside Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, jointly backed the July 1 launch of Ethereum Institutional, a nonprofit designed to court banks and traditional financial institutions toward Ethereum exposure: a longer-horizon institutional demand effort that operates independently of any single company's weekly buying pace.

The company has bought ETH every single week since launching its treasury strategy in June 2025; crossing the self-imposed 5% supply threshold may likely change the calculus for how aggressively it kept buying beyond that point. 

What remains to be seen is whether Bitmine resumes its earlier pace once the 5% target is reached, or whether the buyback becomes the new default use of capital going forward.

ETH price: Technical levels

ETH's path back into the $2,000s and beyond would depend on the ETH whales’ confidence and whether the ETF inflow recovery can extend to a longer streak, bearing in mind ongoing geopolitical flare-ups. 

Bitmine's post-5%-target buying pattern, whether it turns out to be a temporary pause or a lasting shift toward prioritising its own stock, will be one more data point in that picture, but it may yet be the deciding one.

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