Author | Cubone Wu talks about blockchain

Since 2025, four U.S. stock companies represented by SharpLink Gaming, Bitmine Immersion Tech, Bit Digital and BTCS Inc. have built a set of "ETH micro-strategies" that are different from MicroStrategy's holding paradigm by purchasing ETH on a large scale and staking on the chain. This strategy not only reshapes the structure of corporate balance sheets, but also promotes the narrative transition of Ethereum in the capital market. This article focuses on ten key issues and systematically sorts out the core logic of the four companies in terms of capital paths, on-chain deployment, strategic motivations and risk governance.

Question 1: Which US listed companies currently hold the most ETH? How much does each of them hold?

As of July 2025, SharpLink Gaming, Bitmine Immersion Tech, Bit Digital and BTCS Inc. are the companies with the largest ETH holdings in the U.S. stock market. SharpLink Gaming holds about 358K ETH, followed by Bitmine, which holds about 300.7K ETH; Bit Digital holds about 120.3K ETH, and BTCS Inc. discloses holdings of 31.9K ETH. Although Coinbase holds about 137.3K ETH as a trading platform, it is mainly due to operational needs, not strategic holdings, so it is usually not included in the "micro-strategy" category. The above four companies constitute the representative camp of the "micro-strategy" trend of Ethereum in the current U.S. stock market.

Q2: What are the main businesses of these four companies? Who is leading their Ethereum micro-strategies?

These four companies have different original business backgrounds, and the current Ethereum micro-strategies are all led by the company’s current CEO or core members of the board of directors:

SharpLink Gaming (SBET): SharpLink Gaming was originally a sports prediction and interactive game technology provider. Since 2025, the company has gradually increased its holdings of ETH through PIPE and ATM financing, and has made it a core configuration of its balance sheet. The relevant financing was led by Consensys Software Inc., and well-known crypto capitals such as Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, ParaFi Capital, and Galaxy Digital participated. Chairman of the Board Joseph Lubin (co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Consensys) is regarded as a key promoter of this strategic transformation. His deep background in the blockchain field provides directional support for the company's introduction of Ethereum reserves.

Bitmine Immersion Tech (BMNR): Bitmine was originally a blockchain infrastructure company, mainly engaged in Bitcoin mining site operations and liquid cooling hardware sales, with business covering low-cost energy areas such as Texas and Trinidad. In June 2025, the company issued 55.6 million shares at $4.50 per share through private placement, raising approximately $250 million to expand ETH reserves. Crypto capital such as Founders Fund and Pantera Capital participated in it. Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee was appointed chairman of the board to lead the ETH strategic path.

Bit Digital (BTBT): Originally a Bitcoin mining company, it has transformed into a digital asset infrastructure platform in recent years, focusing on expanding ETH validator deployment and staking income strategies. The current CEO Samir Tabar has a background in Merrill Lynch and BitMEX. Since 2022, he has led the company to gradually accumulate and stake ETH and earn income by running Ethereum validators. As of March 31, 2025, institutional shareholders include BlackRock, Invesco and VanEck, holding 3.53%, 2.12% and 1.61% of the company's equity, respectively.

BTCS Inc. (BTCS): Since 2014, it has focused on blockchain infrastructure construction. Since 2021, it has focused on the Ethereum ecosystem, laid out validator nodes and block construction business, and launched Builder+ block optimization tools in 2024 to explore Ethereum staking and block revenue opportunities. The ETH strategy is led by CEO Charles W. Allen, reflecting the company's continued investment in long-term blockchain development.

Question 3: What are the main sources of funds for these companies to purchase ETH on a large scale?

None of the four companies relied on operating cash flow to purchase coins. Instead, they provided financial support for ETH MicroStrategy through diversified channels such as PIPE, ATM issuance, convertible bonds, DeFi lending, and BTC asset realization, reflecting the common strategy of "leveraging on-chain returns with the balance sheet."

SharpLink Gaming mainly builds a financing platform by combining PIPE and ATM. In May 2025, the company completed approximately $420 million in PIPE financing; on July 17, it submitted revised documents to the US SEC, raising the original ATM agreement financing limit from $1 billion to $6 billion, and incorporating the PIPE part into the unified registration scope. The company made it clear in multiple statements that these funds will be used to build ETH strategic reserves and perform on-chain staking.

Bitmine Immersion Tech completed a $250 million private placement in July 2025 and introduced Founders Fund to obtain a 9.1% strategic stake. The company said it plans to use all financing to build ETH reserves, including the subsequent staking income construction, but as of now, there is no public disclosure of the path for on-chain staking deployment.

Bit Digital adopts a combined financing strategy of "BTC monetization + public additional issuance". In July 2025, the company raised a total of approximately US$172 million through public additional issuance and sale of BTC (about 280 in total), which was specifically used to purchase ETH and build an on-chain staking income model. Subsequently, on July 15, it announced that it would raise approximately US$67.3 million through a private placement of common stock to continue to expand its ETH strategic allocation.

BTCS Inc. continues to build its ETH holdings mainly through the three paths of "ATM issuance + convertible bonds + DeFi lending", and has raised its target financing scale to US$225 million, emphasizing the realization of compound growth of ETH per share with minimal shareholder dilution.

Question 4: Why do these companies choose to bet on ETH instead of BTC?

Compared with BTC as a "non-yield reserve asset", ETH has the characteristics of being staking and generating stable on-chain income after switching to PoS, becoming a digital asset tool similar to "yield treasury bonds". At the same time, the Ethereum ecosystem is still in the distributed narrative stage, lacking a leading monopoly like MSTR to BTC. The narrative margin space is larger and the price elasticity is stronger, which is conducive to small and medium-sized enterprises to enter through financing + staking. In addition, ETH has a wider range of on-chain uses, allowing enterprises to participate in the validator network, the re-staking ecosystem and even the modular security coordination mechanism.

Q5: Are the ETH of these companies involved in staking? What are the differences in the staking paths?

SharpLink: Almost all of its ETH holdings have been used for staking, with an annualized return range of approximately 3%-4%. As of July 2025, it has accumulated staking income of more than 415 ETH.

Bit Digital: Actively promoting native staking. At the end of the first quarter, about 21,568 ETH were involved in verification, accounting for nearly 88% of the current holdings, and it earned about US$600,000 in revenue in the quarter.

BTCS: Taking multiple paths, about 10,460 ETH have been pledged through Rocket Pool and solo staking, and about 4,382 are waiting in line. At the same time, the company also pledged part of the ETH to Aave to obtain lending income, building a diversified on-chain income path.

Bitmine: Although the execution of the pledge has not yet been disclosed, it has publicly stated many times that it will launch an ETH pledge plan after the financing is completed.

The four companies have demonstrated different trade-offs and technical paths in terms of staking methods, node control rights and on-chain operation strategies.

Q6: Does the company disclose its ETH profit and loss? Is the on-chain address transparent?

SharpLink: It is currently the only company with publicly traceable ETH addresses, and its capital flow and pledge path can be fully verified through platforms such as Arkham. The company also disclosed that the average purchase price of ETH was US$2,825, and as of July 2025, it has realized a floating profit of approximately US$260 million.

Bit Digital: The on-chain address is not public, but key data such as ETH holdings and staking income are continuously updated through financial reports, with basic transparency.

BTCS: The address is also not disclosed, but the official website and SEC documents list in detail the configuration structure of ETH in Rocket Pool, solo staking and Aave lending, and the asset path is clear.

Bitmine: The latest disclosed holdings are 300,657 ETH, with a total market value of over US$1 billion. The average purchase price is approximately US$3,461.89. The funds came from a private placement completed in early July; but its on-chain address and pledge details have not yet been made public.

Overall, SharpLink is the most complete in terms of profit and loss disclosure and on-chain transparency. Although the other three companies have not disclosed their addresses, they have all provided key information in their financial reports, forming a basic traceability framework.

Q7: What is the proportion of ETH in the asset structure of these companies? Has it become the core reserve?

According to the latest data, as of July 2025, the current market value of ETH of SharpLink, Bitmine, Bit Digital and BTCS (calculated at a unit price of approximately US$3,573) is approximately US$1.278 billion, US$1.074 billion, US$429 million and US$114 million respectively. Compared with the latest estimated market value of each company (US$2.9 billion, US$3.4 billion, US$1.23 billion and US$153 million respectively), the proportion of ETH assets is approximately:

• SharpLink: approximately 44%

• Bitmine: about 32%

• Bit Digital: approximately 35%

• BTCS: about 74%

It should be pointed out that the rapid increase in the proportion of ETH in these companies may be partly affected by the popularity of on-chain narratives, and there is a market behavior that uses topic effects to drive valuations. In the absence of stable operating cash flow support, the sustainability of such strategies and the risk exposure they bring still depends on further observation of their cash flow status, financing rhythm, and pledge deployment progress in their financial reports.

Q8: Did this type of ETH micro-strategy drive up the stock price? What is the market feedback?

As of July 18, 2025, the stock prices of the four US companies that implemented the ETH micro-strategy have experienced significant increases, but also sharp declines, with overall volatility being extremely large:

SharpLink Gaming (SBET): The stock price started at about $2.58 at the end of May, hit a high of $124.12 in early June, and then fell sharply, closing at $28.98 on July 18, with a stage retracement of 92.5%. Although it has risen again recently, it is still far below the high level overall.

BitMine Immersion Tech (BMNR): It soared to $161.00 in the short term after its listing in June. As of July 18, it had fallen back to $42.35, a retracement of approximately 73.7%, indicating that the market's initial reaction to its ETH strategy was highly speculative.

BTCS Inc. (BTCS): rose from the April low of $1.35 to a high of $8.49, an increase of more than 528%. It currently closed at $6.57. Although it is still at a relatively high level, there have been rapid adjustments of more than 20% in the middle.

Bit Digital (BTBT): The stock price rose from US$1.69 to US$4.49 and then fell back to US$3.84, with a cumulative increase of about 127%. During this period, there were multiple callbacks and the overall volatility was significant.

Overall, the "ETH micro-strategy" has indeed become the core catalyst for the surge in the stock prices of the above-mentioned companies in the short term. However, due to the generally small size of related companies, the on-chain assets play a prominent role in supporting valuations, and market transactions are extremely sensitive. SharpLink and BitMine experienced a deep retracement of more than 70% in a short period of time, showing obvious high-risk and high-volatility characteristics. The sharp rise and fall caused by the concentrated inflow and outflow of funds has become a typical market reaction to this strategy.

Q9: What are the main risks of this type of strategy? Is it sustainable?

This type of ETH micro-strategy has multiple risks, the core of which include the following aspects:

The first is price and liquidity risk. The price of ETH itself fluctuates violently. If the market experiences a deep correction, it will directly affect the company's book valuation, especially in the pledged state. Assets cannot be circulated in the short term, which will increase liquidity pressure.

The second is the uncertainty of on-chain risks and re-pledge. In order to increase the yield of ETH holdings, companies may pledge or re-pledge some of their assets on the chain. Although this can improve capital efficiency in the short term, it also introduces risks such as smart contracts, penalty mechanisms, and verification node errors. Once a systemic problem occurs in the on-chain ecosystem, it may cause the depreciation or unavailability of pledged assets in a short period of time, affecting financial stability.

The third is the risk of financing structure. Currently, most companies rely on the at-the-market (ATM) issuance mechanism to provide funds for the purchase of ETH. This type of continuous equity financing will face reduced efficiency or even financing interruption when the market turns cold, and there is also the problem of diluting the interests of existing shareholders.

In addition, as the number of validators increases, downward pressure on PoS yields is gradually emerging. If the on-chain yield continues to decline and the company's finances have not yet achieved positive cash flow, it will be difficult to maintain the profit coverage of the ETH strategy.

Ultimately, whether the company has the ability to dynamically adjust its portfolio, a robust financial scheduling mechanism, and the ability to control the rhythm between on-chain and off-chain operations will determine whether the strategy can truly achieve long-term stable operation.

Q10: Do these companies have the opportunity to become the “MicroStrategy of Ethereum”? Why haven’t they formed a leading pattern yet?

At present, SharpLink and Bitmine have initially formed the market perception of "ETH micro-strategy" representative companies, but there is still a long way to go before they can truly have a global pricing anchor effect similar to that formed by MicroStrategy in the Bitcoin market. The main reasons include:

First, the asset attributes of ETH itself are more complex. Unlike BTC, which is a "value reserve asset" with a fixed supply and cannot be pledged, ETH has income attributes and a dynamically adjusted supply mechanism, making it more like a compound financial instrument rather than a pure reserve asset. This multiple positioning makes it difficult for companies to build a single narrative anchor around ETH.

Secondly, there is a high threshold for on-chain strategy execution. ETH micro-strategies often require companies to operate or host staking nodes, or participate in more complex on-chain revenue deployment. Its technical complexity and security risks are much higher than simple asset allocation behaviors, which makes it difficult for most companies to replicate on a large scale.

Third, the current market capitalization of relevant companies is generally small, and financing tools are limited. A synergy mechanism similar to MSTR's "valuation premium + convertible bonds + media narrative" has not yet been formed, nor has a financial flywheel that can drive the resonance of secondary market sentiment been established.

Finally, the ETH market currently still lacks a "representative enterprise" with high consensus, wide coverage, and strong leverage capabilities. To become a true "Ethereum version of MicroStrategy", it not only needs to continue to accumulate ETH, but also needs to form a closed loop in multiple dimensions such as financing capabilities, on-chain deployment, narrative control, and valuation transmission.