In the past month, Ethereum (ETH) has soared from $2,100 to $3,000. During this wave of growth, U.S. stock companies and mining companies have announced the purchase of ETH as their own strategic reserve. Some mining companies have even sold all their BTC and purchased ETH with cash.
According to statistics, the Ethereum Strategic Reserve Company has purchased more than 545,000 Ethereum in the past month, with a total value of more than US$1.6 billion.
SharpLink (SBET) is the first company to use ETH as a strategic reserve. After announcing the purchase of ETH, its stock price soared from US$3 to more than US$100, and then fell back to single digits. It was criticized by the market. The current stock price is again above US$20.
Recently, SBET purchased nearly 50,000 ETH in just 5 days, and its total ETH holdings have surpassed the Ethereum Foundation.
In addition, SBET has pledged part of its ETH on the chain to obtain its staking income. As of July 8, its staking position has earned 322 ETH.
Currently, there are five major US-listed companies that use ETH as a “strategic reserve”:
SharpLink Gaming (SBET)
· BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR)
Bit Digital (BTBT)
· Blockchain Technology Consensus Solutions (BTCS)
GameSquare (GAME)
The ETH holdings of each company are as follows:
mNAV is the ratio of total market capitalization to net asset value (NAV), and is calculated as follows:
The mNAV of the ETH Strategic Reserve Company is mainly estimated by its total market value of outstanding shares/total value of ETH held.
Is the market FOMO?
The mNAV data represents the disconnect between a companys market value and assets, and also reflects the markets emotional premium on a certain concept or stock. The higher the mNAV, the more speculative the market is. Conversely, it means that investors are relatively rational about a certain concept or stock.
Based on the premium rate of BTC Strategic Reserve Company, as of May 2025, MicroStrategy (MSTR)s market value is approximately 1.78 times its Bitcoin net asset value (mNAV), and its mNAV fluctuated between 1x and 4.5x between August 2022 and August 2024.
MSTR’s mNAV curve reflects how crypto market sentiment dominates the valuations of such companies.
Its highs, such as 4.5 times, usually appear in the BTC bull market cycle and during the period when MSTR increased its BTC holdings on a large scale, showing strong investor enthusiasm. The low point of 1 times corresponds to the bear market and consolidation period of the crypto market, indicating that investors are no longer willing to pay the emotional premium for it.
An mNAV in the range of 2-2.5 represents relatively neutral investment sentiment and premium.
Using this standard to measure the five Ethereum strategic reserve companies: SBET and BTCS are currently in this range, while BMNR and BTBTs mNAV are slightly too high.
It should be noted that BMNR and BTBT were originally mining companies and may hold other assets besides ETH, the value of which has not yet been calculated.
Overall, the current Ethereum strategic reserve coin stocks are still in a relatively rational valuation range, and the market sentiment has not yet reached FOMO.
If Ethereum rises to 5,000, how many times can these companies increase their profits?
If the price of ETH continues to rise to $5,000 in the next few months, assuming that the total amount of ETH held by these companies remains unchanged and no additional issuance is carried out to raise funds, and a more rational premium is estimated (mNAV = 2), the stock price and potential increase will be:
Investors need to note that mNAV = 2 is a relatively neutral premium rate. If ETH really rises to $5,000, the market may be willing to pay a higher sentiment premium for these ETH strategic reserve companies.
And during this period, the ETH pledged by these companies will also bring them income and increase the amount of ETH they hold.
Ethereum value discovery? Why has it suddenly become a hot commodity for institutions?
When these Ethereum strategic reserve companies talked about why they chose ETH, they mentioned the following three reasons:
The success of BTC reserve companies such as MSTR
ETH staking income
· ETH’s future potential in narratives like stablecoins and RWAs.
Sam Tabar, CEO of Bit Digital, is very optimistic about replicating the MSTR model to ETH and is confident that ETH will rise to $10,000:
“We’re just getting started (building up the Ethereum reserve). This is just the warm-up. Think about how Saylor is cyclically issuing his shares to buy BTC, and then BTC keeps going up, giving him more ability to repeat the whole process.”
Primitive Ventures emphasized the potential of ETH staking income in its reason for betting on SBET:
“ETH has the natural ability to earn profits in the staking and DeFi ecosystem, and is a truly productive asset, while Bitcoin lacks such a mechanism. SBET is expected to directly utilize ETH’s on-chain mechanism for compound growth and realize real and quantifiable returns for shareholders.”
The CEO of Bitmine Immersion Technologies is more optimistic about the potential of ETH in RWA and TradFi narratives. He said in an interview:
“In my opinion, Ethereum is attractive because it is the first layer blockchain for tokenizing real-world assets. As more and more things in the financial world and the real world are tokenized, financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, and Walmart will also want to stake Ethereum itself, just like they do with stablecoins. We are doing what these companies will do in the future.”
