A record 43.8 million ether is staked, nearly 36% of all supply, but the yield has dropped to 2.63%, Bitwise says, while Tom Lee's Bitmine now stakes 5 million ETH

More ether than ever is locked up securing Ethereum, and each coin is earning less for it. Bitwise's quarterly staking report, published Tuesday, says 43.8 million ETH, about 36% of total supply, was staked at the end of September, a record. The annualized yield averaged 2.63%, down from 2.81% in the previous quarter. "As more ETH is staked, rewards are distributed across a larger pool, reducing the yield earned on each ETH," Bitwise researchers wrote, per The Block.

The money kept coming anyway. Net staking inflows were just under 2 million ETH in the quarter, the sixth consecutive quarter of positive flows, bringing inflows for the first nine months of 2026 to 7.96 million ETH, per The Block. The biggest single mover was Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the ether treasury company led by Tom Lee, which The Block said grew its staked position more than tenfold, from 410,000 ETH in December to 5.07 million ETH as of September 27. Newly issued ETH provided more than 96% of staking rewards, and network revenue fell to about $40.6 million from $63 million in the second quarter, The Block reported.

Solana shows the same squeeze from a different angle. Active stake reached a record 440.5 million SOL, per The Block, or 69% of supply, while the gross yield fell to 5.99% from 6.38%, per Bitwise. Activity rose: transactions climbed 45% to 14.2 billion, fees rose 49% to $76 million, driven mainly by memecoin trading, and tokenized equity trading volume rose 45% to about $6.9 billion, The Block reported.