Wall Street strategist Tom Lee is aiming to create the MicroStrategy of Ethereum

Tom Lee of Fundstrat, well-known for his accurate bitcoin forecasts and stock market insights, is joining a relatively obscure bitcoin mining company with ambitions to become the largest publicly traded holder of ether.

Starting Monday, Lee will serve as chairman of the board at BitMine Immersion Technologies. At the same time, the company announced a $250 million private placement to support a new ether accumulation strategy. BitMine plans to make ether its main treasury reserve asset, while continuing its core operations in bitcoin mining.

Lee’s new role comes during a surge of interest in stablecoins, spurred by the recent IPO of stablecoin issuer Circle and growing momentum for stablecoin legislation in Congress.

“The financial services sector and crypto are merging, and this really began with stablecoins,” Lee said during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “Stablecoins are like the ChatGPT of crypto—they’ve seen viral adoption by consumers, businesses, banks, and even companies like Visa.” He emphasized that Ethereum is the foundation of the stablecoin ecosystem, saying, “It’s critical to build a project that accumulates Ethereum to safeguard and potentially influence the network.”

Going forward, BitMine will use the amount of ether held per share as a core performance measure—similar to MicroStrategy’s “BTC Yield,” which tracks bitcoin holdings per share. Lee said the value of ether per share can grow through reinvested cash flows, capital markets activity, and changes in ether’s price.

More companies are now exploring crypto treasury strategies beyond just bitcoin. BitMine joins other firms like the publicly listed SharpLink Gaming, which adopted an ether-based strategy in May and brought Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin onto its board. Similarly, DeFi Development is pursuing a treasury model focused on Solana.

Prior to this announcement, BitMine had a modest market cap of around $26 million and thinly traded shares, which were down 45% year-to-date.

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