BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) has secured $250 million via a private placement of common stock and will use the funds to launch an ether (ETH) treasury.
When the deal closes, expected July 3, the Las Vegas-based miner said it will rank among the largest publicly traded holders of ETH.
The financing, priced at $4.50 a share, brought together investors including Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Kraken, Galaxy Digital and Republic. Cantor Fitzgerald advised lead investor MOZAYYX, while ThinkEquity placed the deal.
BitMine justified its choice of ether as a primary reserve asset saying Ethereum currently leads in stablecoin payments, tokenized assets, and decentralized financial applications.
“By having a direcT ETH treasury position, the company has access to native protocol-level activities, such as staking and decentralized finance mechanisms, on the Ethereum network,” the company wrote.
The move also reshapes BitMine’s leadership. Fundstrat founder Thomas Lee, long known on Wall Street for his crypto research and bullishness, was newly appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Lee said the round reflects “the rapid and continued convergence of traditional financial services and crypto” and set a new key performance metric for the company: ether per share.
SharpLink Gaming (SBET) is one of the few other publicly traded companies creating and ether treasury, having recently boosted it to 188,478 ETH. Most other companies creating crypto treasuries focus on bitcoin (BTC).
BitMine’s shares have more than tripled in premarket action to nearly $14.