BlockBeats news: On January 3, BitMine Immersion Technologies recently added another 82,560 ETH (worth approximately $259 million) to the Ethereum staking system, pushing the total amount of ETH in the validator queue close to 1 million ETH. The estimated waiting time for new validators is now approaching 17 days.
On-chain data shows that BitMine has accumulated a total of 544,064 ETH in staking, which is valued at approximately $1.62 billion at current prices. The company began large-scale ETH staking on December 26, 2025, and plans to expand its staking operations in the first quarter of 2026 through its self-built MAVAN (Made-in-America Validator Network).
Affected by the continued entry of institutions such as BitMine, Ethereum validators have approximately 977,000 ETH in the entry queue, while only about 113,000 ETH are in the exit queue. Currently, a total of 35.5 million ETH has been staked across the network, accounting for approximately 2.9% of the total supply, with an annualized staking yield of about 2.54%.
In addition, BitMine's chairman Tom Lee is pushing for the company to increase its authorized share count to 5 billion shares, in response to potential surges in the stock price driven by rising ETH prices. He also suggested that there could be significant upward potential for ETH prices in an extreme bull market scenario.