Silicon Valley Investment Giants Bet on Ethereum, Reshaping the Financial Landscape

In July 2025, a document from the SEC caused a stir in the crypto world: a well-known investment entity quietly acquired 9.1% of BitMine Immersion Technologies, becoming the largest investor in this Ethereum treasury. After the news was announced, BitMine's stock price surged, reaching a maximum intraday increase of 29.3%.

The heated discussion has begun on social media: has this Silicon Valley mogul already shifted from Bitcoin to Ether? Is he planning to follow MicroStrategy's strategy?

The market's restlessness is not without reason. Just a year ago, this investor openly questioned the prospects of Bitcoin: "We already have ETFs, I don't know who else will come to buy. When institutional investors have already entered the market, who can drive the next wave?" From Bitcoin to heavily investing in Ethereum, what game is this Silicon Valley billionaire playing?

Strategic Layout Behind Holding $1 Billion Worth of Ether

BitMine's ambitions are clear: it aims to become the MicroStrategy of Ethereum. On July 14, 2025, BitMine held $500 million worth of Ether (163,142 ETH). Just three days later, this figure doubled to $1 billion, equivalent to 300,657 ETH. Even in the fast-changing world of cryptocurrency, this accumulation speed is remarkable.

However, the vision of this investment mogul goes far beyond creating another corporate treasury. In 2023, the fund he leads made a significant move: investing 200 million dollars to purchase Bitcoin and Ether, each accounting for half. This allocation itself conveys a clear message: Ether has now caught up with Bitcoin.

In addition to the significant investment in BitMine, this investor has quietly begun to layout in the Ethereum ecosystem:

Trading Infrastructure: Invested in a well-known exchange in 2021 and personally served as a senior advisor.

Compliance Infrastructure: In 2024, invest in a regulated stablecoin issuer, and continue to increase investment in another company in 2025, aiming to create a payment giant in the stablecoin sector.

DeFi Infrastructure: Leading Avantis in June 2025, specializing in on-chain derivatives.

Layer-2 Scaling: Invest in Caldera. When the mainnet gas fees remain high, Layer-2 becomes the key to making DeFi truly usable.

Bitcoin is seen as digital gold, while Ethereum is positioned as the cornerstone of the new financial market. An insider close to the investor revealed: "If it's just for storing value, buying Bitcoin is enough. But to take control of the future financial infrastructure, you need Ethereum."

This judgment is not unfounded. While Bitcoin was still grappling with its positioning between store of value and payment, Ethereum had already become: the main battlefield for DeFi (with locked value exceeding $100 billion), the preferred platform for stablecoins (mainstream stablecoins are primarily circulated on Ethereum), and the foundational layer for tokenization of RWA (real-world assets).

More importantly, Ethereum has the ability to generate returns, which Bitcoin does not possess. BitMine's Ethereum vault strategy aims at this point, allowing assets to generate cash flow.

This investment mogul's ambitions are clearly not limited to this: the exchange he supports has secretly submitted an IPO application (June 2025), he is involved in creating a new bank specifically serving crypto enterprises (planning to hold stablecoins), and he is gaining control over industry discourse through the acquisition of media platforms. The overall picture is gradually becoming clear: he is no longer satisfied with merely holding assets, but aims to control the key channels of asset flow.

In the blockchain investment portfolio managed by him, the proportion of the Ethereum ecosystem is steadily increasing. If 2014-2022 was his Bitcoin era, focusing on value storage and ideological narratives, then after 2023, he officially enters the Ethereum era, working on building practical financial infrastructure.

Bitcoin may have won the war on the ideological level, but Ethereum is likely to prevail in practical applications. As central bank digital currencies, corporate stablecoins, and tokenized securities become a reality, they will likely all run on Ethereum.

This investor diversifies their holdings in BitMine through various entities, viewing it not just as an investment, but as a preparation for future control. If BitMine becomes the largest corporate holder of Ether, then this investor effectively becomes the behind-the-scenes operator of the Ethereum ecosystem. From early payment innovations to Bitcoin, and then to Ether, their dream of a financial empire has remained consistent, only the tools have evolved.

Started planning when Bitcoin was at $1000

When the price of Bitcoin was still hovering around $1,000, this investor's fund had already begun to build its position. According to insiders, the initial investment reached tens of millions of dollars, which was quite aggressive among institutional investors at that time.

But his ambitions are clearly not limited to this. In 2013, he invested in a company that later developed EOS. Although EOS ultimately failed to shake Ethereum's position, this investment revealed his true intentions: he wanted not just Bitcoin itself, but the next Bitcoin.

His layout path is more intriguing:

Mining End: Investing in BitMine in 2025 is just the latest move. As early as 2018, it participated in the financing of Layer1.

Trading Platform: Before investing in emerging exchanges, he was an early investor in a well-known exchange. Compared to another exchange that follows a compliant route, this exchange maintains a stronger cypherpunk style, which coincides with his investment philosophy.

Infrastructure: In 2021, when the market was enthusiastic about DeFi tokens, his fund quietly invested in Voltage, providing infrastructure support for the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

This investor's understanding of Bitcoin goes far beyond the simple concept of digital gold. In April 2021, during a conversation with a former official, he put forward a point of view: Bitcoin could become a financial weapon for certain countries to undermine the US dollar.

This statement has caused a huge uproar in the crypto community. Supporters accuse him of betrayal, while opponents believe he is spreading conspiracy theories. However, when placed within the context of his overall ideological framework, the logic becomes clear: Bitcoin is not only an investment asset but also a geopolitical tool that can take the initiative in the new financial war.

Interestingly, just a year later, he changed his tune at the Bitcoin conference, describing it as a revolutionary weapon against the financial establishment. He even listed what he called an "enemies list": including several well-known figures from Wall Street.

In the face of conservatives, he talks about national security. In front of the crypto community, he discusses a revolution of freedom. But what remains unchanged is his core goal: to promote a new order independent of the traditional financial system. This precisely showcases his core trait: adept at using narrative as a weapon.

The results are remarkable: timely liquidation before the crypto winter in 2022, resulting in a profit of 1.8 billion USD; when Bitcoin dropped to 30,000 USD in 2023, they took action again, buying 100 million USD. This is a textbook example of high selling and low buying.

It is worth noting that in July 2024, when Bitcoin ETFs are launched and institutional funds are pouring in, he openly stated that he was uncertain whether Bitcoin would see significant gains from this point onward. In his view, the real weapon will never be an ETF that anyone can easily purchase.

Behind every layout is an unfulfilled monetary dream

Opening the investment portfolio managed by this investor, a clear pattern emerges: almost no investment in DApps, no involvement in GameFi, and only a superficial interest in NFTs. What he is truly interested in are: Layer2 scaling solutions (Caldera), compliance infrastructure (Paxos), derivatives protocols (Avantis), and stablecoin networks (Ubyx). In his view, the importance of protocols outweighs that of specific products; this is his investment creed.

The time rewinds to 1998, when he and his partners founded PayPal. What was their original vision? Not just to create a payment tool, but to create a whole new form of currency.

As early as ten years before the birth of Bitcoin, this investor was thinking about how to disrupt the existing monetary system. PayPal even developed a PalmPilot application in its early days that could transmit digital cash via infrared. Ultimately, due to regulatory pressure, it had to transform into a traditional payment company.

In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. The first thing he did after cashing out was to establish Clarium Capital, systematically seeking the next opportunity for a monetary revolution. He waited a full 12 years.

In 2014, when he first seriously studied Bitcoin, he saw not just an electronic cash system, but the dream that PayPal failed to realize. "We live in a world where Bitcoin is unregulated and atoms are regulated," he summarized in 2015. The implication is that in the digital world, you can build anything, including an entirely new financial system.

In his book "From Zero to One," he repeatedly emphasizes: competition is a game for losers, only monopoly can bring supernormal profits. PayPal's experience made him deeply realize that establishing a financial monopoly in the traditional world is almost impossible. Regulations will strangle you, and big banks will besiege you. The emergence of cryptocurrency has completely changed the rules of the game.

How to establish a monopoly in a decentralized world? The answer is: control the underlying infrastructure. When everyone is building on Ethereum, owning Ether is equivalent to collecting rent. When all transactions require stablecoins, controlling the stablecoin protocol is equivalent to printing money. When regulation eventually arrives, having a compliance license is equivalent to holding the ticket to entry.

This investor even funded key figures of the revolution. In 2014, his Fellowship program gave 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin one hundred thousand dollars, which led him to decide to drop out of university and develop Ethereum full-time. In a sense, this investor not only invested in the infrastructure, but also in the talent that builds the infrastructure.

This explains why he is simultaneously laying out plans for traditional banks (to obtain licenses) and DeFi protocols (decentralized finance); no matter which path the future takes, he can become a winner. A deeper reason might be: in his view, cryptocurrency is not an upgraded version of PayPal, but what PayPal was meant to become, a truly free global financial system that is not controlled by any government.

A brand new crypto financial empire has taken shape.

By 2025, this investor is no longer satisfied with being a passive holder of coins. Through BitMine, emerging exchanges, new banks, etc., he is building a complete crypto financial empire.

A question inevitably arises: why is he so aggressive while traditional financial giants are still watching from the sidelines? The answer may lie in his words from 2015: "We live in a world where bits are unregulated and atoms are regulated."

For him, cryptocurrency is not only a financial revolution but also the ultimate tool for building an unregulated digital world. Now is the best time to place your bets.

After all, as his friend, the CEO of a well-known tech company, said: "The best adventure is a carefully calculated adventure." In this ultimate adventure of cryptocurrency, this investment mogul's layout has only just begun.