The two "bloodlines" of Ethereum (ETH) stand in stark contrast in BitMine and SharpLink.
BitMine, with its aggressive Wall Street approach, swept the market like a structured assault. SharpLink, on the other hand, resembles a native resident of the ETH ecosystem, slowly and steadily perpetuating its native logic.
The shareholder lineup alone reveals SharpLink's "legitimate" status. ConsenSys, the brainchild of ETH co-founder Joseph Lubin, owns core infrastructure like MetaMask and Infura. Lubin personally serves as chairman of its board, deeply integrating SharpLink into the native ETH ecosystem.
In the infrastructure camp, Pantera and Arrington, veterans of Layer 2 and DeFi, are building a solid foundation for the ecosystem. In the financialization camp, Galaxy Digital and GSR, among others, specialize in institutional ETH, transforming holdings into valuable institutional assets. This capital network not only reinforces the "ETH treasury" narrative but also provides resource leverage for operations, becoming a window into ETH for Wall Street.
SharpLink's holdings reflect an old-school approach: early ETH came from transfers from the team's wallet, not the open market; individual purchases were small but carried out over an extremely long period, and the company is particularly rigorous about security and auditing.
According to on-chain data, its position building costs ranged from $1,500 to $1,800, with some early purchases even costing less than $1,000. This resulted in a high proportion of "hoarding" shareholders, making selling pressure unsurprising when the price reached $4,000.
The S-ASR filing, filed on June 12th, allows for the sale of shares at any time. However, this approach carries hidden risks: a hoarding mentality leads the team to overly prioritize costs, making price increases prone to triggering reductions in holdings; a closed information loop discourages proactive marketing; and a chain-first approach lags financial reporting and capital operations.
This also explains why SharpLink consistently lagged behind BitMine's rapid pace of "disclosure - financing - increasing holdings - price increases" in the third quarter of 2025.
The differences in holding rhythms and narrative styles stem from origins and objectives. When Wall Street-style aggression meets the logic of ETH natives, the clash of these two lineages will continue to ferment in the market.
