BitMine Chairman’s Bold Move: Proposes Massive 50 Billion Authorized Share Expansion — What It Means for Crypto Investors

BitMine's leadership just dropped a corporate bombshell — a proposal to balloon the company's authorized shares to a staggering 50 billion. This isn't just paperwork; it's a power play that could reshape the firm's financial architecture.

The Share Surge Strategy

Authorized shares represent a company's maximum potential equity issuance. By pushing this ceiling to 50 billion, BitMine's chairman is essentially asking shareholders for a blank check — future flexibility for acquisitions, fundraising, or strategic partnerships without needing another vote. It's a move that screams ambition, or perhaps desperation, depending on your level of Wall Street cynicism. After all, what's a modern corporate strategy without a little dilution theater on the side?

Fuel for the Crypto Engine

For a crypto-centric firm, this capital structure overhaul isn't done in a vacuum. It signals preparation for aggressive growth phases — think scaling mining operations, snapping up distressed assets in the next downturn, or launching new financial products. The proposal arms BitMine with the dry powder to act fast in a sector where speed kills hesitation.

The Investor Calculus

Shareholders now face a classic dilemma: approve the measure and potentially empower management for future value creation, or reject it and maintain tighter control over equity dilution. The 50 billion figure itself is a statement — it's not a modest adjustment but a wholesale reimagining of the company's capital ceiling. It bets heavily on BitMine's future being astronomically larger than its present.

In the end, this proposal cuts to the core of crypto finance's evolving landscape. Companies are building war chests, not just for the next bull run, but for the long-term institutional siege. Whether this share expansion fuels genuine innovation or just another round of financial engineering remains the billion — or rather, fifty-billion — dollar question.

Why BitMine Authorized Shares Need To Increase: Tom Lee

In a recent YouTube message, Lee urged shareholders to support the motion to increase the number of BitMine shares significantly. According to the chairman, this increase WOULD most importantly address the potential need for future share splits as BMNR’s price tracks the price of Ethereum.

Using the Ethereum/Bitcoin ratio, Lee postulated various potential future valuations for the price of Ether. The BitMine Chairman’s model shows that the ETH price could reach $250,000 if Bitcoin surges to $1,000,000, especially as tokenization continues to draw institutional attention to the Ethereum blockchain.

In the event that Ethereum reaches a valuation of $250,000, Lee’s model puts the BitMine stock at an implied price of about $5,000 per share, a price considered too high for most retail investors. “Not everybody wants a stock price at $500, $1,500, or $5,000. Most people want shares to stay at around $25,” Lee said in the YouTube message.

This argument is based on the unit bias problem, a psychological concept where buyers lean more toward buying a whole unit of an asset instead of a fractional quantity. Due to this cognitive bias, investors are enticed more by numerous units of “cheap” stocks rather than owning fractional units of stocks with better underlying value or ROI (return on investment) potential.

Furthermore, Lee explained that if ETH hits $250,000, BitMine would have to initiate a 100:1 stock split to maintain a share price of $25. The chairman said this share split would create 43 billion shares outstanding.

Lee noted:

The current shares outstanding are 426 million, and we are trying to get the authorized share count to 50 billion. That doesn’t mean we’re issuing 50 billion shares. That’s what we want the total maximum shares to be.

The BitMine chairman also highlighted capital market activities and opportunistic acquisitions as other reasons why the Ethereum treasury firm needs to increase its authorized share count to 50 billion. The shareholders’ deadline to vote on the proposal is January 14, 2026.

After shifting its focus from Bitcoin mining to Ethereum treasury in 2025, BitMine has gone on to become the largest corporate holder of Ether. The BMNR stock closed the day at a valuation of $31.19, reflecting an almost 15% gain on Friday.

Ethereum Price At A Glance

As of this writing, the price of ETH stands at around $3,110, reflecting an over 3% jump in the past 24 hours.