Gold bars to be exempt from tariffs, White House clarifies
Investing.com -- Cryptocurrency-related stocks rose in premarket trading on Friday, with shares linked to ether leading the gains after the second-largest cryptocurrency reached a six-month high.
Shares of BitMine Immersion (NASDAQ:IMMR) Technologies, which holds about $1 billion worth of ether, jumped 14%. Other ether holding firms Bit Digital and BTCS added 4% and 12.5%, respectively.
Ether climbed to $3,675.81, its highest level since January 6, and was trading up 5% at $3,601.40, outperforming bitcoin, which declined 0.7% to $118,961 after reaching a record high of $123,153 earlier this week.
BitMine, where tech billionaire Peter Thiel is the top investor and Fundstrat’s Tom Lee serves as chairman of the board, announced Thursday it had accumulated 300,657 ether in just three weeks. The company aims to acquire approximately 5% of the total ether supply, which currently stands at 120.71 million.
Several other companies have recently added ether to their balance sheets, following Strategy’s approach with bitcoin. Strategy has built its bitcoin holdings at prices significantly lower than current market values.
SharpLink, which has funded its ether treasury through stock sales over the past seven weeks, announced it had increased its current $1 billion share sale plan by an additional $5 billion. Its shares rose 5.6% in premarket trading.
Ether benefits from increased usage of U.S.-dollar-pegged tokens known as stablecoins. Most stablecoins are issued and transacted on the Ethereum blockchain, driving up demand for ether to pay transaction fees.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, marking a significant development for the digital asset industry.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.