There’s been nothing slow about this week between Bullish’s IPO, another bitcoin all-time high, a daily net inflow record for ether ETFs and changing rate expectations.  

Before the weekend, let’s take a closer look at crypto treasury companies as we see growing volumes around those buying ETH. How long will this interest last?

Not all about Strategy 

It’s worth taking another look at those corporations hoarding crypto — particularly as we see momentum around the ones accumulating ETH. 

You may know them as crypto treasury companies or, as Blockworks Research’s Dan Smith calls them: DATs (digital asset treasuries). 

But no matter the label, they’ve grown big enough for many to notice — and we’re not just talking about Michael Saylor’s Strategy.  

Though Strategy (holding 628,946 BTC) has historically dominated trading volumes in this segment of companies, we saw BitMine Immersion (BMNR) eclipse the firm on that metric a few times this week.

BitMine said Monday it held $4.96 billion worth of ether. That means that roughly five weeks after revealing its ETH accumulation plans, the company has the world’s largest corporate ether treasury. BitMine’s stated goal is to own 5% of the ETH supply. 

Blockworks’ Smith previously addressed BMNR’s rising daily volumes within a broader “flywheel”:

Another big crypto treasury firm focused on ether is SharpLink Gaming. That’s the one with Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin as its board chair.

ETH treasury companies now hold nearly 2% of all ETH — up from about 0.5% a month ago. Not quite the percentage bitcoin treasury companies (mostly MSTR) hold, but getting closer:

To be clear, the market cap of companies building ETH treasuries is only about 11% of those with BTC-buying strategies ($107.6 billion to $12.7 billion). 

Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer said he views the recent volume surge for ETH treasury-focused companies as “largely a new-entrant phenomenon.”

“We would expect treasury company launches focused on other cryptocurrencies to see similar surges in trading volume as they start to deploy the capital they have raised and attract investor attention,” he told me.

We’ve mentioned in this newsletter before about the firms looking to hoard crypto assets beyond BTC and ETH (i.e. solana, BNB, SUI and HYPE). 

The growing number of these types of firms has spurred some skepticism. Not all will last, some say — particularly any copycats with no differentiation, or those targeting less tested assets. Felix discussed this universe of companies on stage with industry executives at Permissionless IV, and the Empire podcast crew has also weighed in on the space plenty (see here and here).

The ongoing emergence of these models doesn’t necessarily make the segment a bubble (at least in the classic sense), Palmer argued.  

“Unlike the dot-com era, when companies chased the same market with similar offerings, crypto treasury firms are taking siloed approaches in which a given firm focuses on a specific cryptocurrency and a single jurisdiction,” he explained. “Or it has a differentiated approach such as a franchise-based model aimed at accelerated token accumulation.”

I’ll be most interested to see the market cap growth of those focused on ETH (and other altcoins) relative to the BTC ones. Compared to Strategy, this segment’s companies are rather young and small. We don’t have to rush to judgment. 

— Ben Strack

It’s the summer of DATs and the party is going strong. 

But when October rolls around, everyone will be looking to DAS: London to hear from these meta-defining voices on where things stand and where they’re headed.

Get your ticket today with promo code: FGNL 

📅 October 13-15 | London

• It appears Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent felt the need to clarify statements he made on Fox Business yesterday. After saying the US government would build up its bitcoin stack by not selling any confiscated assets (but not buying more), he noted in an X post later on that “Treasury is committed to exploring budget-neutral pathways to acquire more bitcoin to expand the reserve.” 

• One bitcoin was trading for ~$117,600 at 1:30 pm ET Friday — roughly 5.6% off its high reached this week above $124,000. ETH still hasn’t cracked the peak of nearly $4,900 it hit in November 2021, sitting around $4,400. 

• US ether ETFs saw a combined $2.9 billion of net inflows over the last four trading days. That included a record daily amount of about $1 billion on Monday. 

• The SEC on Thursday delayed its decision on proposed spot solana ETFs from Bitwise, Grayscale, 21Shares and VanEck. This was rather expected, with the agency’s final deadline to rule on these funds coming in October.

• Remember Bullish’s NYSE debut earlier this week? The stock, which opened at $90 on Wednesday, hovered around $70 with a few hours left in Friday’s session. That was the same price at which it closed its first day.