The story that happened with Bitcoin is happening on Ethereum.

Source: W3C DAO

Author: Mask

Original title: The story happening with Bitcoin is happening on Ethereum.

After Michael Saylor's Bitcoin reserve strategy was emulated by more than 50 companies, Wall Street has turned its attention to more productive assets, this time, Ethereum takes center stage.

"We are experiencing an arms race in Ethereum's treasury," said Yang Mindao, founder of dForce, describing the current market situation in a recent comment. "The old OG vehicles represented by Sharplink and the Wall Street vehicles represented by Bitmine, along with many others on the way."

The story of Bitcoin is repeating on Ethereum.

Wall Street capital is quietly reaching for Ethereum. As traditional financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity enter the market through spot ETFs, a reserve competition for ETH led by publicly listed companies has quietly begun. In just two months, over 50 institutions have hoarded more than 1.6 million ETH, worth over $5 billion.

This group of new capital elites is no longer satisfied with passive holding, but instead, they are deeply engaging in staking, DeFi yield farming, and other core aspects of the crypto economy. In just a few months, a wave of U.S. publicly traded companies has emerged, integrating Ethereum into their balance sheets. From a gaming technology company on the brink of delisting to Bitcoin mining enterprises, from Silicon Valley tycoons to Ethereum co-founders, corporate treasuries are becoming the capital pillars of the Ethereum ecosystem, and a capital competition surrounding Ethereum reserves is unfolding.

1. Four Pioneers: The Complete Picture of ETH Reserves of Listed Companies

Since mid-2025, four publicly listed companies in the United States have become typical representatives of the strategy to incorporate Ethereum into their balance sheets, and their transformation paths reveal the inherent logic of this trend.

1. SharpLink Gaming (SBET): The largest institutional holder of Ethereum

After announcing a strategic transformation in May, this gambling technology company, which had been losing money for years, saw its stock price soar 650% in a single day, with a cumulative increase of 17.56 times over three days. Through a combination of private investment in public equity (PIPE) and at-the-market (ATM) offerings, SharpLink has accumulated over 280,000 ETH (approximately 205,634 ETH), surpassing the Ethereum Foundation to become the largest institutional holder of ETH globally. Its core strategy is to stake 95% of its ETH reserves, earning 322 ETH in just one month, while directly participating in maintaining network security and obtaining a stable cash flow.

2. BitMine Immersion (BMNR): Wall Street Strategy Replicator

Backed by "Wall Street Oracle" Tom Lee (co-founder of Fundstrat), BitMine raised $250 million through private placement, adding 81,380 ETH, with total holdings exceeding 163,000 ETH, making it the second-largest ETH reserve publicly traded company. Its distinctive feature is retaining Bitcoin mining operations while replicating MicroStrategy's reserve logic, using ETH as a strategic supplement to the balance sheet, at the cost of 13 times equity dilution, highlighting the capital-intensive nature. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel holds 9.1% of the company's shares through his entity, emphasizing Silicon Valley capital's recognition of this trend.

3. Bit Digital (BTBT): Liquidating Bitcoin to invest in Ethereum

As a former Bitcoin mining company, Bit Digital made a radical transformation in June 2025: selling 280 BTC and raising $172 million through equity financing, increasing its ETH reserves to 100,603 coins, with a historical staking annual yield of 3.2%. CEO Sam Tabar emphasized that this move is a proactive bet on the yield potential of ETH.

4. GameSquare (GAME): Aiming for enhanced yields in DeFi

This gaming media group has launched an ETH reserve plan in collaboration with the crypto institution Dialectic, aiming to allocate $100 million. Its uniqueness lies in using the Medici platform to invest ETH into lending, liquidity provision, and other DeFi protocols, pursuing an annualized return of 8%-14%, significantly higher than the basic staking returns. The first purchase of $5 million worth of ETH has been executed, marking a proactive alignment of the traditional gaming industry with the crypto economy.

2. The capital logic behind the surge in stock prices and the common characteristics of ETH reserve companies.

The stock performance of companies announcing ETH reserve strategies has been astonishing. BitMine's stock price skyrocketed by 3000% in a month, jumping from $4.50 to $111.50; BTCS's stock price surged by 110% in a single day after announcing its ETH reserve plan; SharpLink and Bit Digital's stock prices also saw significant increases of 30% and 20%, respectively.

Behind the market reactions are the key characteristics shared by these companies: they generally faced financial difficulties before the transformation. SharpLink's revenue in 2024 was only $3.66 million, a year-on-year drop of 26%; BitMine had a net loss of $3.29 million in 2024; Bit Digital's loss reached $44.5 million in the first quarter of 2025.

They all chose to build ETH reserves entirely through equity financing, avoiding the use of leverage and convertible bonds, significantly reducing systemic risk, which stands in stark contrast to the model of many Bitcoin reserve companies that rely on leverage.

Wall Street has given significant premiums to ETH reserve companies, with GameSquare's market value reflecting a premium as high as 13.8 times its ETH reserve book value; BitMine's premium is approximately 5 times after completing its latest financing; Bit Digital and SharpLink have more moderate premiums, with the high premiums reflecting the market's optimistic expectations for these companies' strategic prospects.

3. Ethereum's Value Leap: From Stored Assets to Productive Capital

The core driving force behind corporate capital flowing into Ethereum lies in its unique productive characteristics. Unlike Bitcoin, which is positioned as a passive, gold-like store of value, Ethereum offers the ability to generate active yields through staking and DeFi strategies. This contrasts with the "digital gold" logic of Bitcoin reserves. The allocation of ETH by listed companies highlights three levels of enhanced value:

1. Staking generates cash flow: The cases of SharpLink and BitDigital demonstrate that ETH staking can provide an annualized return of 3%-5%, converting idle reserves into productive assets. This addresses the pain point of Bitcoin reserves not generating cash flow.

Currently, over 32 million ETH have been staked, with an annual yield rate between 3% and 5%. According to the Ethereum technical roadmap, the optimization of the validator economy will increase the annual yield rate of staking to 6-8%, and the staking threshold will gradually be lowered from 32 ETH to 16 ETH and even 1 ETH.

This will drive the ETH staking rate from the current 25% to over 40%, locking up approximately 48 million ETH and further reducing the circulating supply.

2. DeFi Yield Engine: GameSquare's target yield of 8%-14% reveals a more aggressive capital utilization path. Through strategies such as liquidity provision and re-staking, enterprises can participate in the distribution of value within the Ethereum ecosystem, forming a growth flywheel of "stablecoin trading growth → increase in Gas fees → rise in ETH demand → increase in staking volume → enhanced network security."

Companies can enhance their returns through diversified strategies. SharpLink opts for basic staking; GameSquare pursues enhanced returns of 8%-14% through DeFi strategies; Bit Digital combines staking and on-chain activities to achieve comprehensive returns. This flexibility is a unique advantage of Ethereum as a reserve asset for enterprises.

3. Ecological Stability Anchor: When enterprises stake ETH, they essentially become supporters of the network's validation nodes. According to statistics, the amount of staked Ethereum broke 35 million at the beginning of July, accounting for over 30% of the total supply, and the influx of enterprise reserves significantly enhances the network's resistance to attacks. A symbiotic relationship develops between capital and the health of the protocol.

The technological evolution of Ethereum has strengthened its fundamental support. The five major technological directions in the next two years include: zkEVM integration will reduce zero-knowledge proof verification costs by 80%; the new RISC-V architecture will reduce Gas costs by 50-70%; L1-L2 collaboration will reduce cross-layer transaction costs by 90%; and the return of sharding technology.

These upgrades will significantly enhance network performance, giving rise to new application scenarios such as high-frequency trading and AI inference. "Institutions choose Ethereum because it is stable, secure, and does not go down." — Vitalik Buterin emphasized in a recent statement!

4. Market Impact and Future Outlook, the Co-evolution of Capital and Technology

The impact of corporate ETH reserves on the market has begun to manifest, with the ETH/BTC exchange rate rising over 50% in the past four months. Analysts predict it may continue to rise by 30%, reaching a level of 0.035 BTC. The Ethereum ETF has seen continuous capital inflow for 12 weeks, totaling $990 million, which is equivalent to 19.5% of its managed asset size, significantly higher than the 9.8% for Bitcoin ETFs.

As the holdings of ETH by listed companies surge, the influence of traditional capital on the Ethereum ecosystem is quietly being reshaped:

1. Position size reshuffle: Institutions holding over 1.6 million ETH now account for 35% of the total size of spot ETFs, with newcomers like SharpLink and BitMine surpassing the holdings of the Ethereum Foundation (242,500 ETH) and traditional whales like Golem.

2. Governance Power Game Concerns: Currently, most participants are financially driven institutions aiming to "hedge against inflation, boost stock prices, or seek short-term gains." If they continue to expand their positions, the governance voice of the developer community and early OG investors may be diluted.

3. Absence of a Soul Figure: Bitcoin has Michael Saylor as its spiritual leader, while Ethereum has yet to see a preacher who possesses both the ability to inspire faith and capital influence. Whether figures like Tom Lee from Wall Street can fill this gap remains unknown.

dForce founder Yang Mindao predicts that the Ethereum holdings of listed companies could reach 10% of the total circulating supply (close to the 30% staking ratio), which will become "the biggest change in Ethereum's capital and governance structure."

This structural transformation deeply binds the interests of enterprises with the health of the Ethereum network, forming a symbiotic relationship.

However, challenges still exist. High premiums may amplify the downside risk when ETH prices correct; DeFi strategies, while offering higher returns, also come with additional risks; regulatory uncertainty remains the sword of Damocles hanging over all crypto assets.

Standard Chartered predicts that the price of ETH may reach $14,000 by the end of 2025, while independent analyst Sassano is even more optimistic, projecting it could go as high as $15,000. Driven by these price expectations, more listed companies may join the ranks of those holding ETH reserves. The three-tiered yield system is gradually maturing: basic staking (3%-5%) → DeFi portfolio strategies (8%-14%) → re-staking derivative yields, allowing companies to customize reserve plans according to their risk preferences.

When traditional enterprise treasuries form a positive capital cycle with blockchain protocols, this may be the most solid value anchor of the crypto economy. The stock price myth of SharpLink and the capital frenzy of BitMine reveal that Ethereum is transforming from a developer paradise into an enterprise-level financial infrastructure.

The entry of institutional capital is not the end, but rather the starting point for the deep integration of the Ethereum value network with the real economy. When the ETH in the treasury of listed companies continuously "bloods" through staking and DeFi, and when corporate earnings are deeply tied to network security—this reserve competition that begins with financial returns will ultimately reshape the symbiotic logic between capital and technology.

The ultimate proposition of blockchain may be to allow value to flow as unstoppable as code, and when corporate treasuries form a positive capital cycle with blockchain protocols, this may be the most solid value anchor of the crypto economy.