In the grand banking hall of Cipriani 42nd Street in Manhattan last week, crypto advocates gathered beneath marble columns and chandeliers to declare the arrival of a new financial era — one that goes way beyond Bitcoin.
Just days earlier, Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world, had surged by about 75% since June to an almost all-time high. Now, inside the former Bowery Savings Bank building, digital-asset executives gathered for what felt like both a victory lap and a sales pitch. The campaign: to convince the financial community that Ether is not just another speculative coin, but the core of a future monetary system — and that corporate treasuries locking it away could accelerate that vision.
Tom Lee, the chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies Inc., took the stage. His company — little known on Wall Street but now sitting on more than $6 billion in Ether — has made a simple bet: don’t just own Ethereum, build an enterprise around it. Lee’s pitch, homed in countless online videos to a retail following, is sweeping.
“Ethereum is where Wall Street and AI will converge,” he said.
It’s a bold claim for a network that still sees most of its activity tied to trading tokens between crypto users. But to Lee, the underlying logic is clear: Ethereum, unlike Bitcoin, isn’t just money. It’s a programmable ledger where software programs called “smart contracts” can run automatically: processing trades, paying interest or managing loans without a bank in the middle.
People use it to swap cryptocurrencies, move stablecoins or take out crypto-backed loans — and each time, they pay a fee in Ether. The more businesses and projects that rely on its rails, the more demand there is for the token. If corporate treasuries quietly accumulating Ether are right, they’ll not only profit from its price rising, but from having called the architecture of tomorrow’s financial system before it was built.
While Ethereum remains the busiest blockchain by on-chain value, it faces two big headwinds: competition from faster, cheaper rivals like Solana — which hit record highs this year — and a persistent shortage of fresh, committed buyers. Lee and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin see treasury programs as a structural fix to that demand problem, locking away supply and giving the market a sturdier floor.
“There’s still a lot of Ether out there,” Lubin told Bloomberg in July. “It’s a bit of a race right now. Because if we lock away lots of Ether and many other projects lock away lots of Ether, that’s really good for the supply-demand dynamics.”
That vision meets resistance in another form: the biggest names in finance are building private versions of the same “blockchain rails.” Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group Inc. is creating a network it will control — cutting fees, keeping customers in-house and bypassing the shared-infrastructure model Ethereum promotes. If that proprietary trend holds, Ethereum could find itself boxed out of the very systems it hopes to power. Stripe Inc. is reportedly doing the same.
The corporate-treasury playbook is borrowed directly from Bitcoin’s most famous evangelist, Michael Saylor, who turned Strategy Inc. into a quasi-Bitcoin ETF in 2020 and over time amassed $72 billion worth of the token. BitMine’s version is smaller — 1% of Ether’s circulating supply — but the ambition is the same: lock up so much of the asset that scarcity itself becomes a moat. Lee notes that if Wall Street piles into Ethereum projects, the token’s value could jump to $60,000 from around $4,300 currently. Whether Ether can replicate Bitcoin’s corporate treasury success is less certain since Saylor’s moves coincided with a historic crypto bull run.
“Michael Saylor at Strategy has proven over four years that owning the underlying is great, but through an ETH treasury strategy — through a liquid public company — you can have multiple of the value of the underlying for the benefit of the shareholders,” Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of Sharplink Gaming Inc. told Bloomberg Television. He is a former BlackRock Inc. executive, who during his time at the world’s largest asset manager, helped launch its Ether ETF under the ticker ETHA. SharpLink has accumulated over $3 billion in Ether.
Proponents argue the math works in Ethereum’s favor. Ether’s issuance is low, and because a portion of every transaction fee is permanently destroyed, supply can even shrink over time. Long-term treasuries could amplify that scarcity. Skeptics point out the risk on the other side of the cycle: corporate holders can sell just as quickly as they buy, potentially magnifying downturns.
“People in crypto like treasury companies because they think that treasury companies will only ever buy and hold,” said Omid Malekan, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. “But there is no such thing as a free lunch. And what most people misunderstand is that there are scenarios in the future, particularly in a crypto bear market, where the treasury company may start selling.”
One of Ethereum’s biggest advantages over Bitcoin is staking — locking up Ether to help run the network in exchange for yield. It’s pitched as a way to turn Ether into a yield-bearing asset — more like a dividend-paying stock than a static commodity. But for now, most mainstream exchange-traded-fund investors can’t access that yield directly.
Alongside other issuers, BlackRock is seeking to add staking to ETHA, according to a regulatory filing in July, which could open the door for retail traders to capture both price gains and yield in the same product. The fund has amassed some $16 billion in just over a year.
For all the activity on Ethereum, most people still don’t use it for everyday money tasks — sending payments, shopping or saving. Many Wall Street tokenization projects are still in testing. Lee says the shift is already underway, pointing to early moves by AI firms, payment companies and large financial institutions to build directly on Ethereum.
“I see many story arcs that are making Ethereum the biggest macro trade over the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.
Ethereum’s believer base now stretches from bank research desks to political operatives. World Liberty Financial Inc, a decentralized-finance venture linked to Donald Trump’s circle, disclosed millions in Ether purchases this year. Eric Trump, co-founder of American Bitcoin Corp., has publicly cheered its rally. Standard Chartered Plc now pegs its year-end target at $7,500, up from $4,000. Ark Investment Management has also raised its long-term forecasts.
The price gains are real. The corporate holdings are real. The belief is sincere. But the test isn’t whether Ethereum can go up. It’s whether it can stick, whether these companies will hold through the next crash, whether the token becomes more than just a bet.
“Financial institutions see Ethereum as a natural choice,” said Tomasz Stańczak, executive director of the Ethereum Foundation. “They understand what products have to be built, what can be improved, and where the efficiency gains are.”
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