Latest news with #TomLee
Bloomberg
9 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Cathie Wood's Ark Bets on Tom Lee's Ether Treasury Firm BitMine
Cathie Wood snapped up shares of Tom Lee's BitMine Immersion Technologies Inc., a US-listed Bitcoin miner that recently pivoted to pursue a treasury strategy tied to Ether, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency. Wood's Ark Investment Management purchased around 4.77 million of BitMine shares on July 21 across three funds, valued at $182 million, via a block trade done through the firm's at-the-market stock issuance program. Proceeds from the sale will be used to buy Ether, BitMine said in a statement.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tom Lee Sees Ether Hitting $15K, With Ethereum Emerging as Wall Street's Favored Blockchain
Ethereum's ether (ETH) may be on the verge of a breakout as institutions begin to realize the blockchain's potential in the same way Silicon Valley embraced artificial intelligence, says Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat and chairman of Ethereum treasury firm Bitmine. "Stablecoins have created the 'ChatGPT moment' for crypto," Lee said in an interview with CoinDeskTV. The asset class, he said, has demonstrated a simple, viral use case as an alternative for payments that resonates with banks, merchants and consumers. Ethereum, boasting over 50% market share of the almost $250 billion stablecoin supply and a key hub for asset tokenization, could be a chain of choice for many institutions to build or use, Lee said. "Wall Street wants to find a chain that's operating compliantly in the U.S. and they want to find a big one where there's already a lot of real-world assets," Lee said. "That's why Ethereum is becoming extremely relevant." While bitcoin's narrative as digital gold is still intact, Lee argued, ETH could offer more upside over the next few years for being the network where institutions tokenize financial assets. Fundstrat analysts put $4,000 as a near-term technical target for ETH, while its "fair value" could be around $10,000-$15,000 by the end of this year. "Our belief that Ethereum is dramatically undervalued as a token," Lee said. "So acquiring an asset that can appreciate by 10 times or more is a really good use of a treasury. Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), a former bitcoin (BTC) miner that has pivoted to an Ethereum treasury strategy with Lee joining as chairman, has already made a substantial bet on that thesis. The firm said last week it accumulated over 300,000 ETH exposure including options, worth well over $1 billion at current prices. Error al recuperar los datos Inicia sesión para acceder a tu cartera de valores Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos
Business Insider
18 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Ethereum (ETH) Nears $4,000 as Crypto Rally Gathers Steam
The price of Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin (BTC), is up 6% in the past 24 hours and nearing $4,000. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week. Ethereum is currently trading at $3,823, its highest level of the year, as the rally in cryptocurrencies broadens out beyond BTC. Ethereum is also getting a lift as financial institutions and treasury companies pour money into the digital asset. U.S.-listed spot Ethereum ETFs saw record inflows of $2.18 billion over the past week after major crypto legislation was passed by lawmakers in Washington, D.C. As the price of ETH rises, some analysts are forecasting that prices will surge much higher in coming weeks and months. Bullish Outlook Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat, says that the price of Ethereum could reach as high as $15,000 given current momentum and bullish signals. Lee notes that support for Ethereum has formed around $3,590 to $3,610, and that transaction volumes have surpassed the 24-hour average of 215,432 units. This consistent upward momentum with successive higher lows potentially indicates ongoing institutional capital allocation, positioning Ethereum for a possible rally beyond current levels. As Ethereum marches higher, the price of BTC is currently around $118,500. Is ETH a Buy? three-month performance. As one can see in the chart below, the price of ETH has risen nearly 105% in the last 12 weeks.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Is A Bitcoin and Ethereum Treasury Company Bubble Forming?
Is A Bitcoin and Ethereum Treasury Company Bubble Forming? originally appeared on TheStreet. After President Trump signed the GENIUS stablecoin Act into law on Friday, the crypto industry is anxiously awaiting what wave of adoption may come next. At the signing ceremony, President Trump once again invoked the idea that America was on the verge of a 'golden age' as the government finally delivers clarity for those looking to leverage the newest tech in finance. He set expectations pretty high. 'The golden age of America is upon us,' he said. 'With today's signing, the future of crypto and the crypto industry, the US dollar working together … is going to be stronger and bigger and better than ever before.' To capitalize on what's to come, there are a few strategies afoot that are pumping prices across the board. Ethereum, for example, surged more than 40% over the last two weeks as a few big buyers look to front-run the banks playing catch up. As we highlighted in our episode on Ethereum treasury companies, that mainly includes Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin's Sharplink Gaming and Tom Lee's Bitmine Immersion Technologies. But the treasury trend isn't stopping with Ethereum – just as it didn't stop with Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor and his company Strategy. But as Dragonfly general partner Rob Hadick tells us, the trend is starting to show a little froth – and potentially a little greed. Hadick told Coinage he and his group of investor friends on a weekend getaway received six calls from people solely to chat about crypto treasury opportunities. 'So that tells you just how much excitement or fervor or just froth there is about that,' he said. 'I think it continues to pick up pace as people are making money … but I do think we need to be thoughtful as an industry about what we're promoting and what we're not.' And to be fair, the largest promoters have been pretty clear about the concept: Provide a little buy pressure as a stop-gap until the cavalry that is TradFi and big banks building onchain arrives en masse. As Sharplink Gaming's Joe Lubin explained rather frankly on CNBC a few weeks back, 'we still have a lot of ether out there and not enough activity to sop it up, and so that's a reason why we and others are doing the ethereum treasury strategies.' Very fair. Very honest. But as these companies become more popular and issue more shares to buy Ethereum (or whatever underlying asset they are cornering) Hadick points out that the fees being charged also seem to be rising. The so-called 'promotes' baked into these are making a lot of insiders quite a bit of cash. 'Traditionally a promote on something like this might be – call it 10%,' Hadick explained, noting the usual level of standard compensation for handling the publicly traded vehicle process. 'I've started to see some of them where the promotes and the warrants are 20%, or I saw one over the weekend at 25%.' As Hadick words it, it's essentially providing the opportunity for treasury companies to sell $1 for $1.20 or $1.25 – and so long as the community around the underlying asset is happy with the price gains, no one really takes too much of an issue with that. And so long as the real building eventually comes to fruition, the stop-gap may very well be a non-issue. Things could play out differently in the future, if prices turn lower. However, it doesn't seem like we're near that point. As Bitmine's Tom Lee told Coinage after becoming Chairman of the treasury company that has now surpassed $1 billion in notional Ethereum holdings, the mission is still the same: Acquire as much ether as possible before other TradFi giants catch up. 'The reason Ethereum is attractive, in my opinion, is that it is the Layer-1 blockchain where real world assets are becoming tokenized,' he said. 'As more things in the financial world and real world become tokenized, then financial institutions like Goldman and JPMorgan and Amazon, Walmart, as they do stablecoins, are also going to want to stake Ethereum itself.' Is A Bitcoin and Ethereum Treasury Company Bubble Forming? first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 21, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Its not just bitcoin. Companies are now adding ethereum to their balance sheets.
It's not just bitcoin (BTC-USD) that corporate treasuries are buying. A handful of firms are scooping up ethereum — or its native token, ether (ETH-USD) — as a way to gain exposure to the tech infrastructure behind decentralized finance and digital assets. So far, the companies taking this approach are mainly smaller names in the crypto world, such as BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), chaired by Fundstrat's Tom Lee. One larger player — Coinbase Global (COIN), the parent company of trading network Coinbase — has more than $440 million in holdings, according to crypto and investment tracker CoinGecko. When Coinbase announced in a 2021 blog post that it would become the first publicly traded company to hold ethereum and other assets, in addition to bitcoin, it stated, "We believe that in the future, more and more companies will hold crypto assets on their balance sheet." Ethereum has surged 60% over the past month to hover near $3,800, its highest level since January. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has yet to reclaim its 2021 high north of $4,600. Ethereum allows developers to write programs or contracts that run entirely on its blockchain, or network. It currently leads as the dominant infrastructure that allows businesses and consumers to transact with each other directly without banks, with a market share of more than 51%. "Ethereum lets anyone — whether it's a crypto project, a factory, an artist, an influencer — create their own token and thus their own community and incentivize communities with an economy basically," Ray Youssef, CEO of crypto marketplace NoOnes, told Yahoo Finance. He called tokenization ethereum's "killer app." "You could argue it has more utility than bitcoin," he said. That utility is why firms like BitMine and SharpLink Gaming have increasingly been raising capital to buy ETH, similar to how Strategy (MSTR) and a slew of other companies have added bitcoin to their balance sheets in recent months. Read more: Can you buy crypto with a credit card? See the pros and cons. As with bitcoin, the approach can be risky due to volatile prices. Ethereum prices tumbled in April when President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs announcement roiled markets. The rewards have not been as high as those that bitcoin has offered either: The return on ethereum year to date is 14%, versus bitcoin's 26%. Crypto miner BitMine Immersion Technologies recently announced it holds more than $1 billion in ethereum, or roughly 300,000 tokens. The company, which went public on June 5, has positioned itself as a pure-play on ethereum, betting that owning it is akin to owning the underlying infrastructure behind the convergence of crypto and financial services. "Acquiring $1 billion of ETH1 is a clear signal of our conviction in ethereum's long-term value," Jonathan Bates, CEO of BitMine, said in the press release announcing the news. He noted that the company was "committed to Ethereum's continued growth." BitMine shares surged 25% in one session last week after an SEC filing revealed that billionaire Peter Thiel purchased 9.1% of the firm's common stock through his investment funds. Gaming and sports betting company SharpLink Gaming (SBET) and blockchain tech firm BTCS (BTCS) have also pursued similar treasury strategies. Shares of each are up nearly 200% over the past month. Earlier this month, computing firm Bit Digital (BTBT) announced that it had shifted its entire treasury from bitcoin to ethereum. "We believe Ethereum has the ability to rewrite the entire financial system," Sam Tabar, CEO of Bit Digital, said in a press release. Year to date, the stock is up 17%. Ethereum's surge coincides with the GENIUS Act, landmark legislation signed by President Trump last Friday, moving through Congress. The new law regulates stablecoins, digital tokens backed by assets like the US dollar and short-term treasuries. Optimism over stablecoin's adoption has sent shares of issuer Circle (CRCL) up more than 600% since its IPO on June 5. The company's USD Coins (USDC-USD) run on ethereum. "If real companies and institutional investors are innovating on the blockchain, doesn't that make blockchain networks, and by implication, blockchain network assets (e.g ETH) valuable?" Bernstein's Gautam Chhugani asked in a note last month. "Any company that uses stablecoin tech pays transaction fees to the Ethereum network." To be sure, not all companies see the same value in ethereum as they do in bitcoin. When asked directly whether Strategy would add ETH to its holdings, executive chairman Michael Saylor said in an interview with The Street, "MicroStrategy wouldn't because MicroStrategy is 150% Bitcoin. We do Bitcoin, we're 150% Bitcoin. We're going to be Bitcoin. And the only thing I like more than Bitcoin is more Bitcoin." Indeed, ethereum is by no means replacing bitcoin as the investment of choice for companies, Sean Farrell, head of digital asset strategy at Fundstrat, told Yahoo Finance. Consider it an adjacent strategy. "I don't want people to misconstrue this movement from treasury companies to be viewed [as] ETH is replacing bitcoin. It's just blockchain technology applied in a different way for a different use case," Farrell said. "These companies are just capitalizing on the real world asset [tokenization] trends." Ines Ferre is a Senior Business Reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
