TLDR:

• • Tom Lee’s Bitmine acquired 71,252 ETH last week, its highest single-week buying pace since December 2025.
    
  • Bitmine’s total ETH holdings reached 4,803,334 tokens, representing 3.98% of the entire Ethereum supply.
    
  • With 3,334,637 ETH staked at $7.1B, annualized staking revenues have grown to $196 million as of April 2026.
  • Bitmine’s combined crypto, cash, and investment holdings reached $11.4B, backed by $864 million in available cash reserves.

Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE American: BMNR) acquired an additional 71,252 ETH last week, pushing total holdings to 4,803,334 ETH. 

That figure represents approximately 3.98% of the entire Ethereum supply. Combined crypto, cash, and investment holdings reached $11.4 billion, including $8.64 billion in ETH and $864 million in cash. 

With 3,334,637 ETH currently staked at $7.1 billion, Bitmine remains the largest Ethereum treasury in the world.

Weekly ETH Purchase Marks Highest Acquisition Pace Since December 2025

The 71,252 ETH acquired last week marks Bitmine’s fastest weekly buying pace since December 22, 2025. At $2,123 per ETH, the total ETH stack is now valued at approximately $8.64 billion. 

Chairman Tom Lee has maintained an accelerated buying schedule over each of the past four consecutive weeks.

Lee attributed the increased pace to a broader market view. He described the current period as the final stages of what he calls a “mini-crypto winter.” 

The company sees present prices as an entry opportunity before an anticipated ETH leadership cycle.

Bitmine is now 79% of the way toward its stated target of owning 5% of the total ETH supply. Lee referred to this milestone internally as the “Alchemy of 5%,” a goal the company has been pursuing over the past nine months.

“In the past week, we acquired 71,252 ETH which is the highest pace of buys since the week of December 22, 2025,” Lee stated. 

The pace of acquisitions shows no sign of slowing, given the company’s cash reserves of $864 million still available for deployment.

$7.1 Billion in Staked ETH Powers Growing Staking Revenue

Of Bitmine’s 4,803,334 ETH, a total of 3,334,637 tokens are currently staked, representing roughly 69% of total holdings. 

At $2,123 per ETH, that staked position carries a current value of $7.1 billion. Annualized staking revenues have reached $196 million, with a seven-day yield of 2.78%.

That yield slightly exceeds the CESR benchmark rate of 2.74%, administered by Quatrefoil. At full deployment through its MAVAN staking platform, Bitmine projects annual staking rewards of $282 million. 

MAVAN, the Made in America Validator Network, was built initially to support Bitmine’s own treasury operations.

The platform is now being opened to institutional investors, custodians, and ecosystem partners. 

Lee noted that Bitmine has staked more ETH than any other entity globally, a position supported by the scale of its treasury.

Beyond ETH, total holdings include 198 Bitcoin, $200 million in Beast Industries, and $92 million in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS). The ORBS position gives Bitmine indirect exposure to OpenAI.

 The company also received approval to uplist from NYSE American to the New York Stock Exchange, effective April 9, 2026, continuing under the ticker “BMNR.”

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 1968.74, up 3.5% (+66.62) since 4 p.m. ET on Friday.

Seventeen of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: NEAR (+8.1%) and AVAX (+5.5%).

Laggards: BCH (-0.6%) and XLM (-0.3%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

The surge in onchain perpetual futures trading appears to be cooling after a meteoric rise in 2025. New DefiLlama data show a five-month downturn in perp volumes on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), with March 2026 totals dipping to $699 billion from October’s peak of $1.36 trillion. Daily activity also slowed, as April 4, 2026, posted $8.4 billion in perp DEX volume—the first sub-$10 billion day since September 2025 and the lowest reading since July 2025. The trend suggests a normalization of speculative demand and leveraged positioning in the broader crypto markets after the 2025 surge.

Perp volumes are often viewed as a barometer of risk appetite and liquidity in the onchain derivatives space. The DefiLlama data indicate that after rapid expansion through late 2024 and 2025, activity has retreated, even as a handful of platforms continue to generate the majority of trading volume on the sector’s perpetual markets.

Key takeaways

• Onchain perpetual futures volumes cooled for five consecutive months after peaking in October 2025; March 2026 total fell to $699 billion from $1.36 trillion in October.
• Daily perp DEX activity crossed below $10 billion on April 4, 2026—$8.4 billion that day—marking the lowest level since mid-2025.
• Trading remains highly concentrated: over the last 30 days, Hyperliquid led with about $185.5 billion in reported volume, roughly 34% of the top-10 perp DEX share.
• Top performers dwarfed smaller venues, with edgeX at $73 billion and Aster at $68 billion; smaller platforms like Lighter and Grvt trailed at about $50 billion and $40 billion respectively, while others clustered in the mid-teens to low tens of billions.
• The 2025 period delivered a historic surge, with perpetual DEX volumes nearly tripling to about $12.09 trillion, of which roughly $7.9 trillion was generated in 2025 alone, driven by torrid Q4 activity.

A cooldown after a blistering 2025 run

DefiLlama’s quarterly and monthly breakdowns paint a picture of a market that expanded rapidly through 2024 and 2025, then settled into a more restrained pace in early 2026. After a torrid late-2025 sprint that helped push annual totals to record highs, the industry has seen a consistent deceleration in onchain perpetual futures trading. The fall in March’s total to $699 billion marks a continuation of a downward slope that began in the autumn and extended into the first quarter of 2026.

The decline aligns with a broader pattern in crypto derivatives markets: heightened risk taking in a buoyant environment often gives way to consolidation as markets absorb leverage, funding dynamics cool, and liquidity shifts across venues. While the momentum has cooled, the continued existence of robust single-day volumes—still measured in the billions—signals that perpetuals remain a core component of onchain trading activity, particularly for traders seeking leveraged exposure and hedging across crypto assets.

Liquidity concentration reshapes the perp DEX landscape

DefiLlama’s latest view underscores a persistent concentration among a handful of exchanges. In the past 30 days, Hyperliquid stood out with about $185.5 billion in reported volume, translating to roughly one-third of activity among the top-10 perp DEXs. The platform’s outsized share underscores a broader trend: despite a broader market slowdown, a few venues continue to capture a disproportionate slice of the action.

Rivals posted markedly smaller figures. edgeX registered around $73 billion, and Aster approximately $68 billion, underscoring the gap between Hyperliquid and other leading platforms. In the mid- to lower-tier, several smaller venues contributed fewer billions apiece—Lighter about $50 billion, Grvt near $40 billion—with a handful of others generating tens of billions over the same period. This distribution highlights how liquidity remains highly centralized, even as the total market cools from its late-2025 peak.

The skew toward a few dominant platforms is not new in onchain perpetuals. The space has long featured a battlefield dynamic, with blockchain ecosystems competing to host or launch perpetual DEXs to capture trading activity. The broader narrative—recounted in industry coverage—describes a market where liquidity tends to consolidate around a small number of major venues, even as new entrants attempt to carve out a niche.

For readers tracking the data, DefiLlama’s continual perp DEX dataset offers a quick gauge of where liquidity concentrates and how that balance shifts as market sentiment ebbs and flows. The latest readings reaffirm that, despite volatility, the leading platforms retain a commanding influence over daily and monthly volumes.

From rapid growth to tempered activity: what changed this year

The 2025 period remains a watershed for onchain derivatives trading. Perp DEX volumes nearly tripled year over year to a cumulative $12.09 trillion, with about $7.9 trillion generated in the calendar year 2025 alone. The tail end of 2025—especially the fourth quarter—was pivotal, with monthly activity pacing at roughly $1 trillion on average. This surge helped establish perpetuals as a central battleground for crypto ecosystems, as blockchains raced to host or integrate perpetual DEXs to capture liquidity and user participation.

That growth story has since shifted into a more measured phase. The consolidation of liquidity on a smaller set of venues suggests that traders have matured in their preferences for where to source leverage and how to manage risk across markets. For investors and builders, the implication is twofold: first, the leading platforms will likely continue to attract the bulk of high-value activity, reinforcing their funding, product development, and ecosystem incentives; second, smaller venues will need to differentiate through features such as lower slippage, faster execution, or novel risk controls to gain traction in a crowded field.

Analysts also point to the macro environment surrounding crypto markets as a cross-cutting factor. While perpetuals flourished as a concentrated, high-velocity trading instrument in 2025, any sustained shift in risk appetite, funding dynamics, or regulatory clarity could further influence where liquidity gravitates. As DefiLlama and other trackers continue to chart the perps landscape, observers will be watching for signs of renewed acceleration or another round of consolidation across platforms.

For additional context, earlier industry coverage has framed perpetual DEXs as central to cross-chain and cross-asset trading competition, highlighting how the governance and technical design choices of each platform can shape liquidity flow and user engagement. Those dynamic tensions remain at play as the market digests the post-2025 normalization and contemplates the next phase of growth in onchain derivatives.

Readers should monitor DefiLlama’s perp DEX dashboard for ongoing visibility into volume distribution across platforms, as well as quarterly updates on how much of the total market is captured by the top players. The trajectory from a 2025 explosion to a 2026 cooldown will likely influence funding strategies, product development, and liquidity incentives across the sector.

Looking ahead, the central question is whether the current cooldown is temporary or if a longer-term shift in trader behavior and platform competition will redefine the perpetuals arena. As the data shows, the answer hinges on whether the dominant venues can sustain high throughput, attract fresh liquidity, and deliver the execution quality that traders demand in fast-moving markets.

Rushed quantum fixes for Bitcoin could introduce new risks, Samson Mow warned in response to calls from Coinbase executives for faster action.

Mow, a Bitcoin advocate and Jan3 founder, took to X on Saturday to address comments from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and chief security officer Philip Martin, who urged the industry to begin preparing for quantum computing threats sooner rather than later.

He said that while post-quantum (PQ) cryptography could secure Bitcoin (BTC) against future quantum computers, rushing implementation may create new vulnerabilities such as compatibility issues and reduced network efficiency due to larger signature sizes.

“Simply put: make Bitcoin safe against quantum computers just to get pwned by normal computers,” Mow said, adding that a poorly timed transition could weaken Bitcoin against today’s threats before addressing future ones.

The exchange reflects a growing debate over how to future-proof Bitcoin, as new research from Google and Caltech reignited concerns about progress in quantum computing.

Why Mow is pushing back and how it ties to the block size wars

One of Mow’s biggest concerns about rushing a quantum fix for Bitcoin is the potential impact on performance, particularly block size, or the amount of transaction data that can fit into a single block.

“PQ signatures will likely be 10-125x larger than current ones, and massively reduce throughput,” Mow said, citing former Bitcoin developer Jonas Schnelli.

The signature issue could potentially pave the way for “Blocksize Wars 2.0,” Mow continued.

Bitcoin’s block size wars began around 2015 and peaked in 2017, when the community split over whether to increase the block size to handle more transactions.

Related: Circle unveils quantum-resistant roadmap for its layer-1 blockchain Arc

That dispute raised concerns about decentralization, network security and who controls Bitcoin’s future, ultimately leading to alternative scaling solutions rather than a simple increase in block size.

Despite arguing against rushing a transition to post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin, Mow said work on potential solutions should continue.

“Given that quantum computers don’t actually exist and likely won’t exist for another 10-20 years, the worst possible course of action is to rush a fix,” he said. “That’s not to say work shouldn’t be done to prepare, and there is already much work being done.”

Magazine: Nobody knows if quantum secure cryptography will even work