At a time when major companies are restructuring their financial strategies around cryptocurrencies, it seems Bitcoin is no longer the only option in the institutional treasury arenas.
The surprise came from a small mining company called BitMine, which chose Ethereum over Bitcoin as the gravitational center of its treasury, sparking a wide discussion in the halls of Wall Street about whether Ethereum is the "most useful asset" for companies in the long run.
BitMine... A small company that sparks major controversy
In a move that stunned the market, BitMine announced the establishment of an institutional treasury based on $ETH instead of Bitcoin, becoming the largest publicly traded company owning ETH. The result? Its share price doubled by more than 1500% in just a few weeks.
The shift was guided by the well-known strategist "Tom Lee", a long-time advocate for Bitcoin, who surprised everyone by describing Ethereum as "ChatGPT of the cryptocurrency world" due to its usability and expanding functions on the network.
Ethereum today stands as the backbone of stablecoin markets, and is distinguished by an additional element: the ability to stake and achieve sustainable returns, which gives it a functional dimension that exceeds Bitcoin's nature as merely a scarce asset.
Investing in $ETH is not just a price bet
Jeff Park, the Director of Strategies at Bitwise, summed it up simply in an interview: "Investors will embrace Ethereum not only for its price gains but because it also generates returns, which distinguishes it from Bitcoin in corporate treasuries."
The difference between the two assets has become more evident today: Bitcoin relies on scarcity and long-term storage, while Ethereum is a comprehensive economic project, from DeFi to NFTs, and has a vital impact on the new financial infrastructure.
What awaits Ethereum technically? A step towards ZK
Away from the vaults and institutions, the Ethereum protocol is preparing for one of the biggest technical transformations in its history. According to an article published by network developer "Sofia Gold" on the Ethereum Foundation site, clients capable of handling Zero-Knowledge Proofs will be integrated at the first layer of the blockchain over the course of a year.
The goal? To upgrade the infrastructure towards more speed, privacy, and lightweight, without a complete change in the consensus mechanism as happened previously when transitioning from PoW to PoS.
The first phase involves deploying zkEVM at the first layer, paving the way for a wave of faster and more energy-efficient decentralized applications.
Technical obstacles exist… but they are being faced with well-thought-out plans
The challenges are not simple. For example, the cost of running a ZK verification node at home could exceed $100,000, with an energy consumption of up to 10 kilowatts, equivalent to the consumption of a small mining farm. However, on the flip side, this infrastructure allows proofs that do not exceed 300 kilobytes, which alleviates the storage burden on the network over time.
Are we witnessing the beginning of the era of $ETH treasuries?
With new projects like BitMine coming into play and increasing interest from institutional investors, Ethereum has become a strong candidate to complement – and perhaps compete with – Bitcoin in institutional treasury strategies.
Amid this transformation, it seems that the next decision to be made by major companies will not just be "Should we buy Bitcoin?" but "Is it time for Ethereum?".