The cryptocurrency market has received a powerful signal from institutional players. Over the past week, three major companies — Strive, BitMine, and Strategy — collectively directed more than half a billion dollars into bitcoin and Ethereum. These are not just "lucky" purchases, but a systematic strategy based on converting shareholder capital into digital assets.
Deal details: who bought how much
Strive, led by CEO Matt Cole, increased its bitcoin reserve by 1,800 coins. The average purchase price was $79,431, bringing the company's total holdings to 23,156 BTC. At the current exchange rate, this amounts to about $1.83 billion. The company operates transparently: over the week, it issued more than 3.57 million Class A shares, and cash holdings grew by $11.6 million — to $183.5 million.
BitMine placed its bet on Ethereum, adding 53,501 ETH to its portfolio. This marks the 65th consecutive week of purchases, starting from June 2025. Notably, 86% of the company's portfolio (over 5 million ETH) is currently staked through its own MAVAN validator network. Board Chairman Tom Lee projects annual revenue from this strategy of $335–390 million. BitMine already controls 4.9% of all issued ether, and it is just 133,888 coins short of the 5% target.
Strategy has also returned to accumulation: after a ten-week pause, the company purchased 4,603 BTC at an average price of $75,412 per coin. Unlike BitMine, Strategy traditionally discloses the average cost of its investments, allowing the market to more accurately assess the effectiveness of its treasury policy.
Capital flows from ETFs and the macroeconomic context
It is worth noting that these purchases occur against the backdrop of significant inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs: in August, they attracted more than $3.3 billion, offsetting June's outflow of $4.5 billion. Similar dynamics are observed in Ethereum funds, which added about $1.75 billion after two months of outflows. The market reaction was swift: over the month, bitcoin rose by 25.7%, and Ethereum by 33.3%.
The mechanism works on a closed-loop principle: demand for funds pushes up the price of the underlying asset, the price increase boosts reserves, and selling part of the reserves again allows for buying more coins. This creates a sustained upward momentum.
Macroeconomic backdrop: capital rotation from AI and Asia
Interestingly, a significant portion of the funds appears to have flowed from the artificial intelligence sector. The timeline supports this theory: the most substantial declines in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) of 20.6% and South Korea's KOSPI of 22% occurred in July. August, however, was calmer: the Nasdaq 100 rose by 4.2%. Foreign investors withdrew 10.17 trillion won from Korean stocks, while trading volumes on the country's largest exchange, Upbit, grew roughly eightfold.
Additional support for the market came from U.S. authorities: on August 19, President Donald Trump called on Congress to pass the CLARITY bill, with a Senate vote scheduled for September 15. The Treasury also expanded its long-term bond buyback program from $2 billion to a minimum of $4 billion per operation, temporarily pushing 30-year yields down to 5.19% before they returned to 5.25%.
At the time of writing this analysis, bitcoin is trading around $78,818. The key factor restraining further growth is not a price decline, but the closed funding window. However, the institutional activity we are observing indicates that major players are confident in the long-term potential of digital assets and are ready to increase positions at any correction.
My view: $500 million in purchases over a week is not a speculative impulse, but a strategic reallocation of capital. When public companies convert shareholder capital into cryptocurrency, they create structural demand that will not disappear amid short-term volatility. This is a fundamental shift that every investor should watch.