Silicon Valley pro heavily invests in Ethereum, ambitious to build an encryption financial empire

In July 2025, a piece of news in the cryptocurrency circle caused a huge uproar: a well-known investor quietly acquired 9.1% of the shares of BitMine Immersion Technologies through their entity, becoming the largest investor in this Ethereum-holding company. After the news was announced, BitMine's stock price surged, with an intraday increase of up to 29.3%.

The market is rife with speculation about whether this investor has shifted from Bitcoin to Ethereum. Is he planning to follow the strategies of other companies? In fact, just a year ago, this investor publicly questioned the prospects of Bitcoin: "Now that there is an ETF, I don't know who else will come to buy. When institutional investors have already entered in large numbers, who can drive the next wave of market movement?" From Bitcoin to heavily investing in Ethereum, what exactly is this Silicon Valley tycoon planning?

The Ambition Behind Holding 1 Billion USD in Ethereum

BitMine's goal is no secret: to become an enterprise-level holder of Ethereum. On July 14, 2025, BitMine held $500 million worth of Ether (163,142 ETH). Just three days later, this number doubled to $1 billion, approximately 300,657 ETH. Even in the fast-changing world of encryption, this accumulation speed is truly astonishing.

However, this investor's vision is clearly not limited to corporate holdings. In 2023, the fund he is part of made a significant investment decision: investing $200 million to purchase an equal amount of Bitcoin and Ether. This allocation itself conveys a message: Ether has now caught up with Bitcoin.

In addition to this heavy blow from BitMine, this investor has already quietly laid out plans in the Ethereum ecosystem:

Trading Infrastructure: Invested in an exchange in 2021 and personally served as a senior advisor.

Compliance Infrastructure: Invest in regulated stablecoin issuers in 2024, continue to increase investment in 2025, and participate in investing in another company, aiming to create the "Visa" of the stablecoin space.

DeFi Infrastructure: Leading the investment in projects focused on on-chain derivatives in June 2025.

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

Bitcoin is digital gold, while Ethereum is the foundation of the new financial market. A person close to the investor's fund revealed: "If it's just for storing value, buying Bitcoin is enough. But to control the future financial infrastructure, you need Ethereum."

This judgment is not unfounded. While Bitcoin is still struggling with its positioning as a store of value vs. payment, Ethereum has already become: the main battlefield for DeFi (with a locked value exceeding $100 billion), the preferred platform for stablecoins (mainstream stablecoins mostly circulate on Ethereum), and the foundational layer for the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA).

More importantly, Ethereum can earn interest, which is difficult for Bitcoin to achieve. BitMine's Ethereum holding strategy precisely targets this, allowing assets to generate cash flow.

This investor's ambitions are clearly not limited to this: supporting a certain exchange's secret IPO submission (June 2025), participating in the creation of a bank dedicated to serving encryption companies (planning to hold stablecoins), and controlling the narrative through industry media. His vision is gradually becoming clear: no longer satisfied with merely holding assets, but aiming to control the channels of asset flow.

The proportion of the Ethereum ecosystem in the blockchain investment portfolio of the fund he is part of is also gradually increasing. If we say that the years 2014-2022 were 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 has won the ideological war, but Ethereum will win in practical applications. When central bank digital currencies, corporate stablecoins, and tokenized securities become a reality, they will all run on Ethereum.

This investor diversifies their holdings in BitMine through various entities, not just investing but also preparing for future control. If BitMine becomes the largest corporate holder of Ethereum, then they effectively become the shadow central bank of the Ethereum ecosystem. From early payment startups to Bitcoin and then to Ethereum, this investor's dream of a financial empire has never changed; only the tools have evolved.

Started laying out when Bitcoin was at 1000 USD

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

But his ambitions didn't stop there. In 2013, he invested in the company that later developed EOS. Although EOS ultimately failed to shake Ethereum, this investment revealed his true intentions: he wasn't after Bitcoin itself, but the next Bitcoin.

His layout path is even more intriguing:

Mining Side: Investing in BitMine in 2025 is just the latest move. As early as 2018, it participated in the financing of a certain mining company.

Trading Platform: Before investing in a certain exchange, I was an early investor in another trading platform. Compared to some exchanges that take a compliance route, this platform maintains a more crypto-punk style.

Infrastructure: In 2021, when everyone was chasing DeFi tokens, his fund quietly invested in companies providing infrastructure for the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

This investor's understanding of Bitcoin goes far beyond the simple notion of digital gold. In April 2021, during a conversation with a former Secretary of State, he proposed the idea that Bitcoin could be a financial weapon used by a certain country to undermine the US dollar.

The crypto community is in an uproar. Supporters accuse him of betrayal, while opponents label him a conspiracy theorist. However, when this statement is 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 tone at the Bitcoin conference, describing it as a revolutionary weapon against the old financial guard. He even listed a "enemies list": Buffett, the CEO of a large asset management company, and the head of a major bank.

Facing conservatives, he talks about national security. Facing the encryption community, he talks about the freedom revolution. What remains unchanged is the core goal: to promote a new order independent of the traditional financial system. This precisely showcases his core trait: using narrative as a weapon.

The results are significant: before the crypto winter in 2022, they cleared their positions in time, making a profit of 1.8 billion USD; when Bitcoin fell to 30,000 USD in 2023, they acted again, buying 100 million USD. A textbook case of high selling and low buying.

It is worth noting that in July 2024, when the Bitcoin ETF is launched and institutional funds are pouring in, he openly stated that he is uncertain whether it will see a significant increase from here. The real weapon will never be an ETF that everyone can buy.

Behind every layout is an unfulfilled monetary dream

Opening the investment portfolio of this investor's fund reveals a clear pattern: hardly any investment in DApps, no involvement in GameFi, and only a superficial interest in NFTs. What truly interests him are: Layer 2 scaling solutions, compliance infrastructure, derivatives protocols, and stablecoin networks. The belief that protocols are superior to products is his creed.

Back in 1998, when he was 23 years old and co-founded a payment company with his partner, what was their initial vision? It was not to create a payment tool, but to create a new form of currency.

Long before the birth of Bitcoin, he was thinking about how to disrupt the monetary system. In the early days, they even developed a handheld computer application that could transmit digital cash via infrared. Ultimately, due to regulatory pressure, they had to pivot to a traditional payment company.

In 2002, a certain e-commerce giant acquired this payment company for $1.5 billion. The first thing he did after cashing out: establish a new fund to systematically look for the next currency revolution opportunity. He waited for 12 years.

In 2014, when he first seriously studied Bitcoin, what he saw was not electronic cash, but an unfulfilled dream. "We live in a world where Bitcoin is unregulated and atoms are regulated," he summarized in 2015. The subtext is: In the digital world, you can build anything, including a brand new financial system.

In his writings, he repeatedly emphasizes: competition is a game for losers, only monopoly can bring super profits. His early entrepreneurial experiences taught him that establishing a financial monopoly in the traditional world is nearly impossible. Regulation will stifle you, and big banks will hunt you down. Cryptocurrency has 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 finally arrives, having a compliance license is equivalent to holding the ticket to entry.

He even funded key figures of the revolution. In 2014, his fund gave $100,000 to the 19-year-old founder of Ethereum, prompting him to drop out of college and develop Ethereum full-time. In a sense, he not only invested in the infrastructure but also in the people building the infrastructure.

This explains why he is laying out plans for both traditional banks (traditional licenses) and DeFi protocols (decentralized finance), no matter which path the future takes, he is a winner. The deeper reason may be: in his view, cryptocurrency is not a payment company 2.0, but what it should have become, a truly free global financial system that is not controlled by any government.

The encryption empire has taken shape

In 2025, he is no longer satisfied with being a passive holder of coins. Through multiple companies, he is building a complete encryption financial empire.

Writing to this point, a question arises: why is he so aggressive while traditional financial giants are still watching? Perhaps the answer lies 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 Bit World. Now is the time to place your bets.

After all, as his friend said: "The best adventure is a calculated adventure." In the ultimate adventure of cryptocurrency, his calculations have just begun.