Ethereum Price Prediction: “We Thought It Would Take Five Years”, and 100,000 Ether Separate BitMine From Its Buying Cap

The largest single standing buyer of Ether switches itself off within weeks. BitMine holds 6,016,414 Ether by its own statement, around 4.9 percent of all 122.1 million coins in circulation. At five percent, roughly 6.105 million Ether, the programme ends. That leaves about 100,000 Ether, six to seven weeks of buying at last week's pace. For the Ethereum prediction that means the demand side loses a buyer who has stepped in every week since mid-2025, and it happens in a phase in which the funds are pulling money out as well. On Thursday morning Ether traded at $2,566.99, down 1.1 percent on the day and 4.5 percent on the week.

What you make of this depends less on the price than on three things you control yourself: your holding period, your buying route, and whether you leave Ether sitting or put it into staking. This piece takes Tuesday's and Wednesday's numbers apart and says which levels carry the coming weeks and which do not.

BitMine Holds 6,016,414 Ether, Around 100,000 Short of the Five Percent Cap

BitMine Immersion Technologies has built the largest Ether treasury in the listed world since mid-2025. The statement dated October 5 shows 6,016,414 Ether, alongside a purchase of around 15,112 Ether in the week before, worth some $41 million at market prices. Measured against the 122.1 million Ether in circulation, that is 4.9 percent.

Circulating supply refers to the coins that are actually tradable, as distinct from total supply including locked holdings. Five percent of that sits at roughly 6.105 million Ether. The gap of around 100,000 Ether is the entire remainder of the programme.

Convert that into time and the order of magnitude becomes tangible. At 15,112 Ether a week and an unchanged pace, the cap is six to seven weeks away. On today's basis the end of the buying programme therefore falls in the second half of November or in early December. A slower pace pushes the date back, a faster one brings it forward. Only the ceiling is fixed, not the date.

Tom Lee Calls the Five Percent Cap a Hard Ceiling in Singapore

It was BitMine chairman Tom Lee who said so on Wednesday at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore. He spoke of the alchemy of five percent and described the threshold as a hard ceiling. On the pace of the build-up he said: “We thought it would take five years.” And: “It cost us a good year.” Both remarks fell in a year in which Ether has lost substantially.

The reversal is the notable part. In August, in an interview on the Bankless format, Lee had explained that his company had no reason to sell: staking income of some $300 million a year covered the $30 million to $35 million preferred dividend on the 9.5 percent Series A several times over, and the five percent question would be revisited in 2027. Six weeks later the open horizon has become a ceiling.

The market repriced it immediately. BitMine stock gave up 7 percent on Wednesday, rival SharpLink 5 percent, and Michael Saylor's Strategy also lost 5 percent. For investors who take crypto exposure through listed treasury companies rather than through a regulated trading platform, the uncomfortable lesson of the week sits here: a treasury that stops growing loses its most important narrative.

Staking Income as a New Source of Selling: What Changes on the Ether Supply Side

The second part of the announcement weighs more heavily for supply than the first. Lee held out the prospect that BitMine could sell the Ether the company earns through staking in order to keep its own share below the five percent ceiling. A buyer would thereby turn into a seller.

The scale is in the company's own statement. Around 5,067,309 Ether, some 84 percent of the treasury and worth roughly $13.8 billion at market prices, sit in staking through the in-house validator network MAVAN and through partners. At a seven-day yield of 2.63 percent that extrapolates to about $363 million a year. Should that stream flow to the market in future instead of into the treasury, additional supply on that scale meets a market that is already under pressure.

Staking means posting your own Ether as collateral so that they help confirm blocks, with new coins paid out as the reward. If you do it yourself, know the lock-up periods and the withdrawal times before you choose a provider: our comparison of staking platforms sets yield, minimum amount and payout duration side by side.

ETF Outflows of $506.3 Million in Five Days, the Highest Total Since January

The second pressure point comes from the exchange-traded funds. On October 6 the US spot Ether ETFs saw net outflows of around $202 million, and $201.89 million of that, practically the entire sum, fell on BlackRock's ETHA. October 7 brought a further $160.8 million, again led by ETHA with $116.1 million, behind it Grayscale's ETHE with $25.8 million. Across five trading days the total comes to $506.3 million, the highest five-day figure since January 23, 2026.

For comparison: in September the same funds still gathered $832 million. The providers count differently because they use different fund groups and cut-off times; some houses describe October 7 as the sixth consecutive day of outflows, others as the seventh. The direction is the same in every count.

If you hold Ether inside a fund wrapper instead of directly, you carry this mechanism with you. Outflows force the issuer to sell the coins held in deposit, and that reinforces the very move that triggered the outflow. Which wrapper is physically backed and which runs through a debt security is set out in the issuer's key information document.

Ethereum Price at $2,566: the Supports at $2,548 and $2,500

On Thursday morning Ether stood at $2,566.99. That is around 8.5 percent below the weekly high at $2,806. The next widely watched support sits at $2,548, the round level beneath it at $2,500.

Technical analysts who published scenarios this week map the next catch zones between $2,330 and $2,355 on a sustained break of $2,500, and $2,200 after that. To the upside the zone around $2,800 counts as a hurdle, and in those presentations it only becomes reliable again once the funds turn from outflows back to inflows. These are external assessments and not an assurance; the span between $2,200 and $2,800 shows above all how far apart expectations lie.

For the prediction the sequence matters more than any single number. As long as BitMine buys, a buyer stands in the market every week. After that he is gone, and the staking stream can switch to the selling side on top. So if you watch a level, tie it to a date rather than to a feeling.

Glamsterdam Runs on Sepolia, Hoodi and Mainnet Have No Date

The supply side is only one half of it. The other is the next major network upgrade, named Glamsterdam, where there is one documented interim stage and one open deadline. On the Sepolia testnet the upgrade went active on October 6 at 15:53 German time, at epoch 353,024 and slot 11,296,768; seven epochs later the chain was finalised, and the fork identifier moved from 0x90000075 to 0x90000076.

For the next two stages the opposite of clarity applies. The Ethereum Foundation announcement states explicitly that the activation dates for the Hoodi testnet and for mainnet have not yet been decided. October 27 has come up in developer calls as a proposal for Hoodi, but it has not been agreed. The fourth quarter of 2026 remains the stated target for mainnet, without an epoch and without a date. As of Thursday, 84 days of it are left.

In substance Glamsterdam brings 18 improvement proposals. EIP-7732 anchors the separation of proposer and block builder directly in consensus and hands validators a new duty. EIP-7928 fixes a list of the accounts and storage slots touched by every block. EIP-8037 reprices gas against permanent growth of the state. The builder software from the Titan and Ultrasound teams has not yet followed the fork on Sepolia in full, and that is why the developers are taking their time with Hoodi.

What this means for the prediction: a date that is not fixed does not work as a price driver. Bet on the upgrade today and you are betting on a quarter, not on a day.

Holding Period and Exemption Limit: 365 Days Separate a Gain From a Tax Bill

The part you can settle regardless of the price is the tax side. In Germany the tax office treats Ether as another asset under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Sell within a year of buying and the gain is taxable, charged at your personal rate. If more than a year lies between purchase and sale, the gain stays free of tax, whatever its size.

Two figures go with that. For gains inside the one-year window an exemption limit of 1,000 euros per calendar year has applied since 2024. An exemption limit, unlike an allowance, means that once it is exceeded the whole gain becomes taxable and not merely the part above it. Staking income falls under section 22 number 3 alongside, with an exemption limit of its own at 256 euros a year.

The burden of proof decides the case, and it rests with you. Without the purchase date, purchase price and quantity for each acquisition, the tax office cannot recognise the one-year window, and in the unfavourable case it then counts the full sale proceeds as a gain. Download your trading statements now, then, not in May; exchanges switch off accounts after migrations, and the record is gone with them. With many acquisitions, carry the allocation forward on a first-in, first-out basis and document it as you go. Which programmes build that out of exchange statements is shown in our comparison of tax software.

Buying Route Under MiCA: What to Watch When You Choose an Exchange

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets came into full force, providers offering trading or custody in the EU need authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. That authorisation can be looked up publicly: BaFin keeps a register of the companies licensed in Germany, and the European supervisor ESMA keeps one for the whole union.

Three points are worth a look before you buy Ether. First the authorisation itself, second whether the provider keeps your coins separate from its own holdings, third the total cost of trading fee and the spread between buying and selling price. The third is routinely underrated: a platform with no order fee can work out dearer through the spread than one with a stated fee. Our comparison of trading platforms for Germany adds the two together.

If you intend to hold the coins for the long run, custody is part of the decision. Ether in an exchange account legally sits with the provider; only the transfer to a wallet of your own makes you the holder of the keys. That is not a price question, it is a failure question.

Leverage and Liquidation: $102 Million Cleared Out in 24 Hours

On Tuesday and Wednesday the move took leveraged positions out of the market. In the 24 hours around the break of $2,600, Ether futures positions worth some $102 million were closed by force, predominantly bets on rising prices.

Liquidation means the exchange unwinds a leveraged position automatically as soon as the posted collateral no longer covers it. At five times leverage a counter-move of a good 20 percent is enough, at ten times around 10 percent. This week's move sat inside those ranges, and that is exactly why it caught so many positions.

In practice, leverage shortens the time your calculation has to come good. Betting over the coming weeks on the end of the BitMine programme or on an upgrade date means fighting an open deadline against a fixed collateral threshold. That is an unequal pairing.

BitMine Buying Cap: 100,000 Ether Before the Weekly Purchases End

The position fits into a single sentence: the most reliable buyer of the past fifteen months names a ceiling for the first time, the funds are withdrawing money, and the upgrade that could serve as a counterweight has no date for mainnet. Three steps you can draw from it:

1. Secure the records. Download the trading statements for your acquisitions and note the date, price and quantity for each entry. What builds that automatically out of exchange statements is in the comparison of tax software.
2. Recalculate the buying route. Put your provider's trading fee and spread against the licensed competition before you buy more. The numbers are in the overview of trading platforms.
3. Look at staking if you are holding anyway. Leave Ether sitting for years and you should know the lock-up period, the withdrawal time and the provider risk; the staking comparison sets them side by side.

(As of October 8, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)