BitMine swallowed 830,000 ETH: Wall Street seized Ethereum pricing power in 35 days.

Author: Lin Wanwan

Original title: He spent billions to buy Ethereum, saying 4000 is the bottom.

Editor’s note: BitMine has recently increased its Ethereum holdings to 1.5 million ETH, with a total scale of approximately $6.6 billion, briefly surpassing SharpLink to become the world’s largest ETH treasury. However, alongside the decline in ETH, the company’s stock price is also under pressure. Meanwhile, the captain Tom Lee predicts that the ETH price may first fall back to $4,075 before rebounding to $5,100. This raises a key question: why has the pricing power of Ethereum shifted to Wall Street capital? In response, Rhythm BlockBeats provided a tentative answer in an article on August 12.

No one originally expected that the “top seat” of Ethereum’s enterprise holdings would change hands in just 35 days.

Represented by Tom Lee, the company behind BitMine achieved the following: this small company, which was previously unnoticed on NASDAQ, increased its ETH holdings from zero to 830,000 through a PIPE financing and three rounds of structured accumulation, completing a remarkable turnaround against SharpLink, becoming the world’s largest ETH treasury.

This is not just a victory or defeat in numbers, but a contest between two different bloodlines of capital — SharpLink, representing the “crypto OGs,” slowly accumulates coins and waits for prices to rise; BitMine, representing the “Wall Street power,” realizes profits through pushing prices up. Low cost versus high leverage, the mindset of accumulating coins versus the Narrative strategy, behind it is a direct confrontation of two worldviews.

It’s not just that their methods of buying coins are different, but they are competing for the answer to a question: in the next phase of crypto finance, who has the right to define the “price” of ETH?

We are trying to understand this quietly occurring but sufficiently intense industry shift from multiple perspectives.

Why are there two lineages of ETH?

If BitMine represents a Wall Street-style structural raid, then the existence of SharpLink is precisely the continuation of the “ETH native” logic.

The divide between these two companies lies not only in their holding patterns, disclosure methods, and narrative strategies, but more importantly: what they represent behind them are two completely different origins and purposes.

SharpLink - The coins in the hands of OGs have been held for too long and are moving too slowly. Analyzing the shareholder lineup of SharpLink, it almost covers the entire capital chain of the Ethereum ecosystem.

The first category is the original bloodline camp: Consensys (founded by ETH co-founder Joseph Lubin) controls core facilities like MetaMask and Infura, with Lubin serving as the chairman of the SharpLink board. The second category is the infrastructure camp: Pantera, Arrington, Primitive, etc. are deeply engaged in Layer2, DeFi protocols, and cross-chain facilities. The third category is the financialization camp: Galaxy Digital, GSR, Ondo Finance, etc. operate directly in institutionalized, derivative, and custody businesses on ETH, making their holdings manageable and value-added institutional assets.

This capital binding not only amplifies SharpLink’s “ETH treasury” narrative but also provides resource leverage in buying, staking, and reducing positions, becoming a bridge for Wall Street to understand ETH.

The initial ETH holding structure also reflects this “OG attribute”: originating from internal transfers within the team wallet rather than the public market; the scale of single purchases is relatively small, but the distribution period is very long; emphasizing security, liquidity management, and audit collaboration.

According to financial reports and on-chain estimates, SharpLink’s ETH acquisition cost range is concentrated between $1,500 and $1,800, with some early holdings even below $1,000. Because of this, the proportion of “HODLers” in its shareholder structure is very high, so it would not be surprising if there is natural selling pressure when the price returns to around $4,000.

Moreover, as early as June 12, SharpLink submitted a document named S-ASR, the core content of which is that after this registration takes effect, the stocks can be sold immediately.

This path is not wrong, but it naturally brings three problems: the OG team’s “hoarding” mentality makes them pay more attention to the cost-benefit ratio, and once the coin price rises sharply, it easily triggers the impulse to reduce their holdings; the information flow under the OG network is more closed and cautious, not inclined to actively play the Narrative card; prioritizing on-chain operations makes them lag behind in terms of financial report disclosure efficiency and capital market operations.

This is precisely the deeper reason why SharpLink lagged behind in the third quarter of 2025 when facing BitMine’s rhythmic strategy of “disclosure - financing - increasing holdings - price increase.”

V God Image Source: coingecko

In contrast, BitMine has almost arrived in the ETH track with a “typical Wall Street capital entry” posture. First, the PIPE financing structure itself is full of financial engineering implications: it adopts a cash + warrant + ETH combination subscription structure; participants include mainstream U.S. stock structured investors such as Galaxy Digital, ARK Invest, and Founders Fund; the chip distribution is transparent, with lock-up periods set, which is conducive to stabilizing the valuation model.

We can also get a glimpse from the backgrounds of its board members—many come from investment banks, private equity, and hedge funds, familiar with PIPE financing, regulatory arbitrage, and refinancing cycles. In their eyes, ETH is not a “digital currency,” but a new type of financial asset that is “priceable, tradable, and cashable.”

The difference between OG and Wall Street is not just a matter of rhythm, but also a conflict of motives.

This forced Sharplink to start thinking, is the OG’s ETH not enough?

They seem to have provided a new answer to this question - starting on August 7, new Wall Street institutional investors were introduced to participate in its $200 million registered directed offering.

This is a “power transition” in the Ethereum narrative: gradually shifting from the hands of OGs to the hands of capital that can clearly explain financial reports, tell good stories, and run through structures.

The future may not necessarily be dominated by BitMine, but what can be anticipated is that: the pricing dominance of the next round of ETH will no longer be decided by crypto OGs, but rather by who controls the Narrative structure, who can secure more financing from Wall Street, and who will possess more “narrative chips.”

How to seize the ETH leadership position in 35 days?

On July 1, 2025, BitMine’s ETH holdings were zero; by August 5, its disclosed holdings had reached 833,137 coins. In just 35 days, this company, which previously had no crypto label in the public market, transformed from a “nobody” into the “largest Ethereum treasury company in the world,” surpassing SharpLink.

What exactly is BitMine doing? We will analyze it in detail.

BitMine’s timing of actions is extremely precise. During its 35-day explosive period, there was almost a rhythmic announcement every 7 days, each one feeling like a scripted progression: Week 1 (July 1 – July 7): PIPE financing of $250 million successfully completed, publicly disclosing the initial purchase of around 150,000 ETH; Week 2 (July 8 – July 14): additional purchase of 266,000 ETH, total holdings exceeding 560,000; Week 3 (July 15 – July 21): further purchase of 272,000 ETH, cumulative holdings reaching over 830,000;

The three rounds of disclosure did not use the routine updates found in quarterly reports, but instead conveyed clear signals to the market in an insertive manner through media, official websites, investor relations letters, etc.: “We are continuously buying ETH on a large scale, and we are the leaders in institutional holding growth.”

This approach disrupts the traditional disclosure logic of financial companies that relies on “waiting for financial reports to come out,” and shifts towards a “narrative-driven” rhythmic offensive.

More importantly, its position-building rhythm is highly coordinated with market trends. BitMine’s average buying price is not a blind accumulation, but rather a strategic low buy during market adjustment windows by “timing the rhythm.” According to the PIPE document, its average buying price for ETH is $3,491, which precisely avoids the peak of the phase while also hitting the sensitive range before ETH enters a new upward channel.

This precise layout is not a coincidence, but rather a complete toolkit provided by Galaxy Digital that includes “OTC structural design + on-chain settlement + custodial clearing”, enabling the efficient absorption of large amounts of ETH without causing severe price fluctuations.

At the same time, BitMine’s stock price experienced explosive growth in sync with its disclosure. It surged from $4 at the beginning of July to $41 in early August, an increase of over 900%. Its total market capitalization also jumped from less than $200 million to over $3 billion.

It is even more noteworthy that after each position update released by BitMine, not only did its stock price rise, but the ETH spot market also experienced a simultaneous increase in volume. The market has begun to see “BitMine buying - ETH price rising” as a set of logically related events, further reinforcing the closed loop of the Narrative.

This positive cycle of “market expectations - structural disclosure - asset buying - price feedback” is regarded by Wall Street as a typical case of market capitalization reconstruction. However, the difference is that it not only reshaped the company’s valuation but also redefined the market dominance of the ETH treasury in a Narrative way.

BitMine is no longer just a coin-holding enterprise; it is becoming a key hub in the “Ethereum institutional structure.” In this process, it does not wait for market recognition but actively seeks to “create” recognition through rhythm, disclosure, rhetoric, structure, and pricing models.

In summary: this is not a “wait for a rise” positioning, but a “forced rise” structure.

From nothing to something, from buying coins to driving up valuations, from disclosure to leading pricing, BitMine has created a “structural increase” template in 35 days.

And it may also be the earliest financial prototype to appear in the next Ethereum bull market narrative.

Tom Lee: The New Bull Market Spokesperson

As the co-founder and research head of Fundstrat Global Advisors, Tom Lee is one of the most influential bridges between the U.S. stock market and the cryptocurrency market. He understands macro data, knows how to manipulate public opinion, and, more importantly, he knows how to present the idea of “growth” in a way that is both reasonable and appealing.

His fame is not based on accurate predictions, but on high frequency, strong narrative, and strong positioning. The popular saying goes: “Tom Lee may not always be right, but he definitely speaks early, loudly, and in a way that makes you remember.”

His most representative tool is the Bitcoin Misery Index (BMI) — a “market sentiment indicator” designed by him, which quantifies the market’s “misery index” by integrating data such as trading volume, return rates, and volatility.

The greatest significance of this index lies not in predicting rises and falls, but in providing “data endorsement” for his bullish remarks. For instance: when the BMI is extremely low (<27), he will say “this is the moment for long-term holders to buy the dip”; when the BMI is extremely high (>80), he will then state “this indicates that a structural bull market has arrived”; if the price drops, he will say “the sentiment has not yet fully released”; if the price rises, he will say “the on-chain structure is being repaired.”

No matter if it rises or falls, there is always something to say; no matter how the market is, one can always shout bullish.

Tom Lee Image Source: coingape

Tom Lee’s “structured shout-out” style has several notable characteristics.

Always provide a new target price. He once predicted in 2017 that Bitcoin “would soar to $250,000 in 2022,” and then in 2021 changed his statement to “expected to reach $200,000 in 2024”; when the market performed poorly, he cited factors such as the halving cycle, inflation adjustment, and Federal Reserve policies to “delay” expectations while also upgrading the logic.

Platform synergy + frequent appearances. He is a regular guest on CNBC’s “Fast Money” and a fixed commentator for Bloomberg; his own Twitter (@fundstrat) is almost updated daily and synchronizes with YouTube interviews, using short video summaries and charts to convey his views; he also regularly updates data summaries with charts on the Fundstrat official website for media to reference.

Emotions drive investors, narratives drive institutions. Retail investors listen to him call the bottom; institutions listen to him discuss the structure. He can create psychological expectations suitable for different groups within the same model, forming “multiple narratives nested.” For example, he repeatedly emphasized the “institutional buying window” during a price crash, while urging retail investors not to miss the opportunity to get in before the halving.

From prediction to faith maker. He doesn’t just say “it will rise”; he will tell you “the structure of the rise is reasonable,” “ETH will become the new anchor for tech stocks,” and “BTC is the new generation of digital gold.” He transforms the “result-oriented” bullish calls into a “faith-oriented” asset re-evaluation.

In the construction of the Ethereum narrative for 2024–2025, Tom Lee once again becomes an important driving force. He not only states that ETH will rise, but also claims that “ETH will become a part of corporate balance sheets,” a viewpoint that directly provides public support for Narrative-type operations like BitMine.

In the rise of BitMine, we can almost see the deep shadow of Tom Lee’s rhetoric logic: using “structural indicators” like ETH-per-share to measure fundamentals; using “cyclical logic” to explain the rationality of rapid increases; and using “institutional entry” to conceal the aggressive strategies behind high-cost purchases.

Tom Lee is definitely the king of Narrative; he relies on speaking loudly rather than just being right.

Epilogue

In traditional financial markets, the asset price is determined by profitability and cash flow; however, in today’s world of crypto assets, prices often exist before value, and narratives frequently dominate the generation of valuations.

The rise of BitMine is not just a change in the ETH numbers on the corporate balance sheet, but a narrative reconstruction around “how to make institutions understand ETH.” SharpLink clings to old logic, slowly accumulating coins on-chain; BitMine, on the other hand, quickly achieves a “consensus handover” by stepping to the beat of structure and sentiment.

This is not a question of who is more honest, but rather a question of who can more quickly, clearly, and structurally turn “cryptographic assets” into “financial assets.”

Behind this, there is an even larger round of Narrative competition quietly brewing: Who will be the “long-term valuation anchor” for ETH on Wall Street? Who will build the next mainstream model of “ETH-per-share”? Who can turn the liquidity narrative into structural income? Who will ultimately become the next dominant player in institutional pricing discourse?

The market will provide the answer. But one thing is certain: this round of the Ethereum treasury war is no longer just a relay of on-chain faith.

The pricing of Ethereum’s ceiling no longer belongs to the original OGs who were the first to be bullish, but rather to the Wall Street capital that tells the best stories.