- Bitcoin corporate balance sheet strategies have been all the rage.
- Now companies are hoarding alternative cryptocurrencies.
- Ethereum is a utility play, said Jeff Park of Bitwise.
Just last week, Wall Street strategist — and longtime Bitcoin bull — Tom Lee made waves by landing a role atop a little-known Bitcoin miner turned Ethereum treasury company.
For Jeff Park, head of Alpha Strategies at Bitwise, the move signaled something different: Ethereum may be carving out a separate, fundamentally different investment thesis from Bitcoin in the public equity markets.
That difference, according to Park, starts with utility.
“Ethereum is a useful asset,” Park said in a July 8 interview on the Wolf of All Streets podcast.
“Bitcoin stores value. But Ethereum is productive — it earns yield.”
Bitcoin treasury companies like Strategy and Metaplanet have surged in popularity by raising money through convertible debt to buy and hold Bitcoin — all to watch their stock prices soar. Their appeal lies in leverage, Bitcoin’s scarcity, and a bet on Bitcoin’s adoption in the wider economy.
More than a buy-and-hold
Ethereum is different, said Park.
While Strategy-style, Bitcoin-buying firms talk about yield thanks to some clever financial engineering, Ethereum-focused firms can generate yield organically, via protocol-level participation.
Indeed, Ethereum isn’t just a buy-and-hold asset. It’s a network that generates native cash flows through staking and restaking.
Staking is the process of locking up Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, Ether, to help secure the network and validate transactions.
In return, participants earn rewards. It’s like earning interest for helping run the system.
That makes it a different kind of playbook — less financial alchemy, more operator strategy.
“Investors will lean into Ethereum not just so that it can appreciate in price alone, but because someone is doing something with that to generate yield,” Park said.
“I think that’s a meaningful unlock as a treasury play for Ethereum that’s fundamentally different from Bitcoin.”
Ethereum stakers are receiving 3% yearly interest, according to the Ethereum Foundation.
The fact that Ethereum offers investors yield could help attract more Wall Street funds. Cash flow, after all, is a concept traditional investors understand.
Bitcoin’s upper hand
It will be hard to upend Bitcoin’s dominance in the corporate treasury play.
Bitcoin treasury firms have been first to market, helped by a simple pitch: buy Bitcoin, hold it, and watch the number go up. Both for their holdings as well as their stock.
That clarity, combined with Bitcoin’s fixed supply, has been easy for traditional investors to digest. It’s digital gold, now with a balance sheet boost.
Ethereum, on the other hand, comes with a more complex technological stack.
Concepts like staking, restaking, slashing, and validator economics can be overwhelming — even to seasoned financial analysts. Ether has also been slow to appreciate amid widespread price rallies in other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Ethereum trades at about $2,600 while Bitcoin changes hands for $108,900.
Still, if yield generation and real economic activity start to matter more than simple scarcity plays, Ethereum’s thesis may begin to resonate.
Especially if firms like the one Tom Lee now leads can show that protocol-level participation can deliver real, measurable returns.
Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].
