(Bloomberg) — Long-time crypto advocate and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin says he was swayed into launching a firm to invest in the network’s native currency about six-months ago by the best-known advocate of stockpiling digital tokens.
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“I was at a dinner with Michael Saylor, I did a little bit of research, I started talking to my colleagues about how cool it could be,” Lubin, the founder and chief executive officer of Ethereum software infrastructure provider Consensys, said in an interview. “Nobody in our company had done a deep dive on it. We saw, hey we don’t see anything overly dangerous in the strategy.”
The eye-popping returns the software firm formally known as MicroStrategy has registered since Saylor decided in 2020 to turn the company into a leveraged Bitcoin proxy have captivated both Wall Street and individual investors. The outsized premium shares of the now-named Strategy command over the value of its Bitcoin holdings has spurred a surge in so-called crypto treasury companies seeking to emulate Saylor’s success.
Last week, the sports betting and gaming technology firm SharpLink Gaming Inc. said it would become a Ether treasury company, with Lubin serving as chairman of the board. SharpLink said Monday that it closed a $425 million private placement to purchase Ether for its treasury. The fund raise was led by New York-based Consensys.
Shares of SharpLink surged around 1,000% through Friday following the May 27 announcement. The stock, which had tumbled more than 50% annually in the last three years, slumped about 40% on Monday.
Lubin expects to raise additional capital to fund purchases of Ether, which is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value after Bitcoin.
“There will be ways for us to take in more capital for us to buy more Ether,” Lubin said, citing Saylor’s strategy of issuing shares and convertible bonds. “We’ll do that in a prudent way, we’ll not take excessive risk.” The key is not to become over-leveraged, Lubin said.
“We anticipate that our actions and similar actions will drive a huge amount of demand for Ether,” said Lubin, who said other firms are looking at Ether treasury strategies as well.
While Saylor has been promoting Bitcoin as digital gold, the marketing message behind Ethereum — crypto’s commercial highway, with thousands of gaming and lending apps — has been more garbled. Some investors shifted to only investing in Bitcoin, which has gained about 11% so far this year. Ether is down about 26%, even after a rally following its latest software upgrade. Lubin believes Ether deserves better.
