Public Company Raises Capital for Ethereum Purchases
SharpLink Gaming, a publicly traded company focused on building an Ethereum treasury, just announced a significant capital raise. They’re selling 4.5 million common shares at $17 each, which brings in about $76.5 million. What’s interesting here is that this price represents a 12% premium over their closing price from October 15th, which was $15.15 per share.
This move comes at a time when the company has been slowing down its Ethereum acquisitions. Over the past month, they only added around 2,900 ETH, worth approximately $1.18 million. That’s a noticeable drop from their previous pace. Currently, SharpLink holds 840,124 ETH, which is valued at roughly $3.38 billion.
BitMine Continues Aggressive Expansion
While SharpLink has been slowing down, BitMine Immersion Technologies has been going in the opposite direction. They’ve actually added more Ethereum in the last month than SharpLink’s entire holdings. BitMine acquired about 880,500 ETH recently, pushing their total holdings to over $12.1 billion worth of Ethereum.
That’s quite a gap between the two companies. BitMine now holds approximately $3.55 billion in just their recent acquisitions alone, which is more than SharpLink’s entire treasury. It makes you wonder about the different strategies these companies are pursuing.
Additional Investment Options
The institutional investor involved in SharpLink’s share sale also received what they call a “premium purchase contract.” This gives them the option to buy another 4.5 million shares at $17.50 each until January 15th. If they exercise this fully, it would generate another $78.8 million for SharpLink.
Joseph Chalom, SharpLink’s co-CEO, described this as a “novel equity sale transaction” that shows institutional confidence in their long-term vision. He mentioned that raising equity at a premium allows them to continue accumulating Ethereum and increasing the ETH-per-share value for investors.
Market Context and Volatility
The timing of this capital raise is interesting given recent market conditions. Ethereum reached an all-time high of $4,946 back in August, largely driven by this corporate treasury trend. But it’s been a rough week for crypto markets overall.
Last Friday, Ethereum dropped from $4,350 to below $3,700 amid broader market concerns. President Trump’s tariff threats against China apparently triggered a cascade of liquidations, with over $19 billion in positions getting hit in a single day. That set a new record for the crypto industry.
As of now, Ethereum is trading around $3,980, down more than 8% for the week. Market sentiment seems bearish in the short term, with predictions suggesting only an 18% chance that the price will be above $4,200 by Friday. Those odds have actually fallen by more than 13% in just the last day.
SharpLink’s stock has been relatively flat today, up about 0.25% to $15.19, though it’s down nearly 11% over the past week. It’s a challenging environment for these treasury-focused companies, but they’re still pushing forward with their strategies.
