Mentioned in This Article
1. Why are ether ETFs losing money in October?
Spot ether exchange-traded funds in the United States have recorded $1.2 billion in net outflows in October through the 22nd, making it their weakest month of 2026. Investors pulled money out on every trading day in that stretch except two, according to SoSoValue data. The reversal is stark: the same funds took in a combined $2.7 billion across August and September.
The pullback matters because ether's demand this year has come largely from two sources. One is the group of spot ETFs, which let investors hold the asset through a regulated brokerage account. The other is Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), a listed company that has been building a large ether treasury, buying the token and holding it on its balance sheet. In October both buyers are retreating at once.
The timing is awkward for the bullish case. Adoption headlines have kept coming, among them JPMorgan bringing its deposit token to Ethereum this week. Such announcements show that large financial institutions are building on the network, yet they do not by themselves create buying pressure on the token. Price only rises when someone actually purchases ETH, and the central question for the market is who steps in when the largest buyer stops.
A spot ETF works by holding the underlying asset on behalf of its shareholders. When investors put money in, the fund's custodian buys ether, and when they redeem, the fund sells or releases it. That mechanical link is why net flows are watched so closely: sustained inflows translate directly into purchases of the token, and sustained outflows translate into selling pressure or at least the absence of buying.
The answer depends on three figures: how much ether Bitmine still wants to buy, how much new supply the network creates each week, and how large the ETF swings are relative to both. Each is examined below.
2. How fast is Bitmine still buying ether?
Bitmine's accumulation has slowed sharply from the pace it set earlier in the year. The company has bought ether every week since June 30, 2025. In April and May it bought more than 100,000 ETH in a single week on four separate occasions. In each of the last two weeks, it bought about 12,500 ETH.
The company now holds 6.04 million ETH, equal to about 4.9% of Ethereum's circulating supply. Its cash balance has been falling by roughly $30 million a week, and its last three holdings updates show no fresh capital raise. A treasury company that is not raising new money can only buy with what it already has, so the shrinking cash pile points to a natural limit on further purchases.
The company's chair, Tom Lee, has also told investors that the buying is finished. Speaking earlier this month, he used the phrase "We're done stacking." At the Token2049 conference, he described the 5% ownership target as a hard cap and said that Bitmine will not accumulate past that level. Taken together, the slowing weekly purchases, the declining cash and the chair's remarks all suggest the company is close to the end of its buying program.
By one count, based on the company's latest holdings update, Bitmine would reach the 5% goal in late November if it continued at its current pace. That makes the handoff from treasury buying to other sources of demand a matter of weeks rather than months.
3. What is the 5% cap, and why does it keep moving?
The 5% cap is Bitmine's stated ceiling on how much of all ether in existence it will own. A goal expressed as a share of supply is not a fixed number of tokens, because supply keeps growing. According to ultrasound.money, the total supply expands by about 87,000 ETH a month, which means the finish line moves further away by roughly 4,300 ETH each month on a straightforward calculation.
That drift is small compared with the 6.04 million ETH the company already holds, but it shows why a percentage target needs periodic top-ups just to stay level. Bitmine can only stop buying and remain at 5% if it is willing to see its share slip below that mark as new issuance dilutes it. Lee's description of the target as a hard cap implies that it treats 5% as an upper limit, not a floor it must defend.
A treasury company differs from a fund in an important way. It is an operating business whose shares trade on an exchange, and it typically pays for its coin purchases by raising money from investors, either by selling new shares or through other financing. Its buying capacity is therefore tied to its own stock price and to investor appetite for the strategy. When fresh fundraising stops, as Bitmine's last three updates indicate, the buying program loses its fuel even before any formal cap is reached.
For the market, the key point is that the single most reliable buyer has told investors that it intends to stop. A holder that sits at the cap and does not sell removes supply from circulation but no longer adds to demand. Once the buying ends, price support has to come from elsewhere.
4. How much new ether does the network issue each week?
The network issues roughly 20,000 new ETH a week, and that is the amount that other buyers would need to absorb for the market to stay balanced once Bitmine stops. The figure is an approximation rather than a fixed schedule. Ethereum's fee-burning mechanism removes ether from circulation in proportion to network usage, so net issuance rises and falls with demand for block space.
In periods of heavy use, as in 2023, more ETH was burned than issued, which made the supply deflationary. This year the picture has been different. Issuance has stayed relatively stable, because much of the activity has moved to Layer-2 networks, which are separate chains that settle their transactions on Ethereum. That migration leaves mainnet gas fees low, and low fees mean little newly issued ether is burned.
The practical consequence is that supply and demand no longer move in the same direction. Network activity, which once helped burn issuance away, has shifted elsewhere. Buyers, which once absorbed what remained, are pulling back. Neither development is dramatic on its own, but together they change the balance the market has relied on for most of the year.
The result is a quiet but steady increase in supply. In a market where Bitmine was absorbing a large share of that issuance, the added tokens were easily soaked up. With the company's purchases down to about 12,500 ETH a week, and heading to zero, the share of new supply that needs a different buyer is growing.
5. How big are the ETF swings compared with treasury buying?
ETF flows are far larger and less predictable than treasury purchases. The funds took in $1.85 billion in August and $832 million in September before turning negative in October. They hold about 6.2 million ETH, roughly the same amount as Bitmine, with combined net assets of $14.6 billion, according to SoSoValue.
Outflows in October have averaged about $357 million a week, based on Farside data. Bitmine's recent buying works out to roughly $30 million a week at its reported prices. On those numbers, the ETF swing is about 12 times larger than the treasury company's current weekly purchases.
That comparison reframes the debate. Bitmine's slowdown is widely discussed, yet the funds' reversal moves more money in a single week than the treasury has been spending. Whether the ETFs return to net buying is therefore the larger determinant of whether ether finds enough demand to absorb new issuance. A resumption of inflows at even a fraction of the August pace would more than offset the loss of treasury buying, while continued outflows would add to the supply the market must digest.
Other treasury companies are an uncertain replacement. Whether they can raise and deploy capital for ether depends on how their shares trade relative to the value of the coins they hold, since a company can only fund purchases by issuing equity on favourable terms.
6. Who buys ether once Bitmine stops, and what comes next?
The most direct answer is that ETF investors would have to become net buyers again, at a scale sufficient to cover the roughly 20,000 ETH the network issues each week. At current prices, the weekly dollar value of that requirement is much larger than Bitmine's recent purchases, which means the funds carry the heaviest load.
Context helps in reading the numbers. A weekly outflow of $357 million is large next to Bitmine's purchases, yet it is modest next to the funds' $14.6 billion in net assets, which means the funds have not been abandoned. They have, however, stopped growing, and a market that depends on steady growth in holdings feels the difference quickly. The same logic applies in reverse: a return to inflows would be felt just as quickly.
The near-term markers are straightforward. Bitmine's weekly holdings updates will show whether purchases continue at about 12,500 ETH or fade further, and whether the company approaches its 5% ceiling in late November. Daily flow data from the ETF issuers will show whether October's outflows are a temporary dip or the start of a longer trend. Any new capital raise by Bitmine would also change the assessment, since its last three updates reported none.
Until those indicators turn, the evidence points to a market in transition. The network's adoption story continues, but the two buyers that carried demand through the year are stepping back together, and the question of what replaces them remains open heading into the end of the year.