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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