The world’s largest corporate holder of Ethereum (ETH), BitMine (BMNR), is set to launch a staking strategy that is expected to generate a 2.79% pre-tax yield. According to reports, this would make BMNR among the 800 most profitable firms in the U.S.
In addition to holding 2.83 million ETH, representing 2.5% of its supply, the firm also holds 192 Bitcoin and $456 million in cash, giving the company about $1.3 billion in combined crypto and cash reserves. This makes the firm the second largest corporate holder of crypto, behind Nasdaq-listed Strategy.
As the crypto market fell over the past week, BitMine acquired another 104,336 ETH worth $417 million, according to on-chain tracking data.
BitMine’s co-Founder and CEO Tom Lee is calling ETH “the biggest macro trade for the next 10 to 15 years as Wall Street financializes on the blockchain.”
Wall Street to build on Ethereum
In a recent interview, Lee explained that Ethereum’s founders are currently preparing upgrades that will allow major financial institutions, including Wall Street firms, to build directly on the blockchain.
Lee said that after recently spending time with Ethereum developers, he learned they were coordinated on implementing the necessary changes for institutional integration.
“I have gotten the clear sense spending time with a lot of the Ethereum founders that they are really listening to make sure they’re going to do the upgrades that allow Wall Street to build on Ethereum,” Lee said.
A consequential shift
As traditional finance is rapidly moving onto the blockchain, many analysts are calling the move one of the most consequential shifts in corporate finance. Already, a number of blockchain innovators are offering tokenized versions of stocks, while recently Nasdaq has sought SEC approval to tokenize all of its equities on the Ethereum blockchain. As we reported last week, China’s Alipay – which boasts some $1.4 billion users – has recently migrated to Ethereum. The implication is massive: Ethereum is set to onboard 1.4 billion new users, or over 17% of the world’s population.
Moreover, Ethereum also forms the backbone of the rapidly growing decentralized finance ecosystem with utility for lending, borrowing, and payments – bypassing traditional banks.
Corporations such as Alipay and BitMine are betting big that the next leap in digital finance will not happen in a bank, but on Ethereum.