The software CEO Michael Saylor pioneered the approach with his company MicroStrategy, which began accumulating large stockpiles of Bitcoin in 2020, quickly becoming a way for investors to get access to the volatile cryptocurrency through a publicly traded vehicle, long before the approval of exchange-traded funds. The idea for BitMine was to do the same but for Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency.
Though Ethereum has at times struggled in recent years amid the proliferation of other blockchains and its own technical challenges, Lee argued that it is still the “blockchain of Wall Street,” especially as financial firms explore the implementation of stablecoins and different tokenized assets, many of them native to Ethereum.
BitMine, whose market capitalization sits above $15 billion, holds over three million Ethereum tokens, or around 2.5% of the total supply, though Lee’s goal is to acquire 5%. While investors have more options to buy top cryptocurrencies than when Saylor began accumulating Bitcoin for MicroStrategy, Lee argues that BitMine still offers advantages, from reaping staking rewards to being included on major stock indexes. “We’re essentially a liaison between how Wall Street views future upgrades to Ethereum,” Lee said.
