The Ether Machine added 15,000 ETH to its balance sheet in a $56.9 million purchase, resuming its long-term accumulation strategy, the company said on Wednesday. SharpLink Gaming followed with a major acquisition, buying $43 million worth of ETH.
The latest acquisition, made at an average price of $3,809 per Ether (ETH), pushes the company’s total holdings to 334,757 ETH, it said in a news release, noting that it was timed to coincide with Ethereum's 10-year anniversary.
“We couldn’t imagine a better way to commemorate Ethereum's 10th birthday than by deepening our commitment to Ether,” said Andrew Keys, chairman and co-founder of The Ether Machine. “We are just getting started,” he added.
The Ether Machine was formed earlier this year through a business combination by The Ether Reserve and Nasdaq-listed Dynamix Corp. The deal, expected to close in Q4, would see the firm go public under the ticker ETHM, with a targeted $1.6 billion raise.
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Ether Machine becomes third-largest ETH holder
With this latest purchase, The Ether Machine becomes the third-largest corporate holder of ETH, outdistancing the Ethereum Foundation’s reported 234,000 ETH, according to StrategicETHReserve data. The firm trails only Bitmine and SharpLink Gaming.
The Ether Machine still has $407 million in reserve for additional purchases, per the announcement.
On Thursday, SharpLink also spent $43.09 million USDC (USDC) to purchase 11,259 ETH at an average price of $3,828, according to on-chain data. The latest buy brings the firm's total ETH holdings to 449,276 ETH, valued at approximately $1.73 billion.
Meanwhile, Keys also donated $100,000 to the Protocol Guild, a major Web3 funding initiative that supports Ethereum’s core developers and has distributed millions to over 150 contributors.
“Ethereum has been proving to be more than just a smart contract platform for institutions in recent times — they are seeing it as the foundational infrastructure for the new era of digital finance,” Ray Youssef, CEO of NoOnes, told Cointelegraph.
Youssef said Ethereum is driving the convergence of traditional finance and crypto by hosting tokenized assets, onchain payments and institutional-grade custody, with much of programmable finance’s core infrastructure built directly on its network.
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Corporations accelerate ETH buying
Corporations are now accumulating Ether at twice the pace of Bitcoin (BTC), according to a recent report from Standard Chartered. Since early June, crypto treasury firms have acquired 1% of Ethereum’s total supply, fueling ETH’s recent outperformance.
The bank noted that this surge, along with strong inflows into US spot Ether ETFs, has supported Ether’s rally and could help push the price above its $4,000 year-end forecast. Despite these gains, ETH remains over 20% below its all-time high of $4,890.
Standard Chartered expects Ether treasury firms to eventually control up to 10% of the total ETH supply, driven by opportunities in staking and DeFi that Bitcoin-focused firms lack.
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