cointelegraph.com
BitMine Immersion Technologies, a publicly traded Bitcoin (BTC) mining company, has added 373,000 Ether ($ETH) tokens to its treasury in the past week, bringing its holdings of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency to 1.52 million tokens worth $6.6 billion. The move comes as the Ethereum ecosystem has seen renewed interest.
However, BitMine’s share price has suffered as the company has added more $ETH to its treasury. According to Google Finance, BitMine shares have dropped 14.2% since Aug. 11, the same period during which it has bolstered its Ether holdings.
BitMine Chairman Thomas Lee said in a statement that the company increased its Ether holdings as “institutional investors have expressed interest” in its $ETH accumulation strategy. This strategy is known as the “alchemy of 5%” in which BitMine hopes to acquire 5% of the circulating Ethereum supply.
“BitMine has benefitted from incoming institutional investor interest in the company, as Ethereum is seen as the place where Wall Street is building the 21st-century banking and payment rails and as AI builds the token economy on Ethereum,” company spokesperson Marcy Simon told Cointelegraph.
According to the industry tracker Strategic $ETH Reserve, BitMine is the largest corporate holder of Ether, controlling 1.3% of the overall coin supply. SharpLink Gaming is the second-larges, with 729,000 $ETH worth approximately $3.2 billion. The Ether Machine comes in third with 345,000 $ETH worth around $1.5 billion.
Over the past two months, BitMine and SharpLink Gaming have been racing to add Ether to their treasuries. BitMine on Friday said it planned to raise $24.5 billion through an at-the-market stock sale to acquire more Ether. SharpLink has completed a $389 million capital raise to buy more Ether.
Related: Ether Machine scoops up $57M in $ETH; SharpLink follows with $43M buy
Ethereum interest coincides with ETF inflows, higher price prediction
Ether treasury companies are just one investment vehicle that has contributed to an upsurge in the $ETH spot price. Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have captured investor interest, with the ETFs seeing around $17 billion in trading volume last week, according to Bloomberg ETP analyst Eric Balchunas.
The renewed interest in Ethereum has led to a new price prediction by multinational bank Standard Chartered: a $7,500 price point for $ETH in 2025, up from a prior forecast of $4,000. The reason for the bullish price prediction is two-fold: increased institutional buying and adoption of stablecoins due to US regulatory clarity.
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade — designed to improve user experience, introduce new validator upgrades for staking and increase data throughput for layer-2 transactions —may have affected the $ETH spot price as well. Since the upgrade on May 7, $ETH’s spot price has increased from $1,812 to its current price of $4,332, a rise of 139%.
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