Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) uplisted its shares from the NYSE American exchange to the primary New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Thursday. The company’s board simultaneously approved a major expansion of its share buyback program, raising the authorization from $1 billion to $4 billion. Shares were up approximately 1% following the uplisting, with the firm holding over $11.4 billion in cryptocurrency and cash.
BitMine Immersion Technologies completed its uplisting to the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, with shares concluding trading on the NYSE American exchange Wednesday. Shares in the firm changed hands around $21.75 after opening on the new venue, reflecting a gain of nearly 1%.
BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement, “Today, BitMine achieved a major milestone by being uplisted to the ‘Big Board’ NYSE.” Alongside the uplisting, the firm’s board approved increasing its share buyback program authorization from $1 billion to $4 billion.
Lee stated the expanded buyback “reflects our commitment to shareholders,” and that the company wants to be positioned to retire shares accretively if they trade below intrinsic value. It does not appear that BitMine has used funds to repurchase shares to date, as publicly available data shows the firm is currently trading below an mNAV of 1.
Other publicly traded digital asset treasuries, like competing Ethereum treasury firm Sharplink (SBET), similarly repurchase shares when their mNAV trades below 1. Despite its own discount, BitMine has consistently purchased Ethereum, adding around $150 million worth of ETH last week.
At the time of writing, BitMine’s intraday market cap was approximately $9.81 billion. Its Ethereum holdings alone, consisting of more than 4.8 million tokens, accounted for over $10.6 billion in net assets, according to a Monday press release. The firm also holds around $14 million in BTC and $864 million in cash, totaling roughly $11.4 billion in holdings.
Shares of BMNR have fallen around 63% over the last six months, as Ethereum has declined 55% from its August all-time high of $4,946.
