Wall Street to ETH? Analysts Warn Public Companies May Soon Gobble Up 100% of New Post-Merge Ethereum Issuance
Corporate treasuries are coming for your ETH—and they've got balance sheets to burn.
The institutional feeding frenzy
Since Ethereum's supply dynamics flipped with The Merge, public companies are quietly positioning themselves as the ultimate diamond hands. With staking yields beating traditional fixed income, CFOs are waking up to crypto's siren song.
Supply shock incoming?
At current issuance rates, just three Fortune 500 companies could vacuum up every newly minted ETH. The math's simple: institutional demand meets algorithmic scarcity. Suddenly, your DeFi yield farm looks like a lemonade stand.
Bonus jab: Nothing makes a boardroom approve crypto faster than watching their competitor's stock pop after an earnings call mentioning 'blockchain initiatives.'
Why Institutions Soon Buy up All Newly Issued ETH
Since Ethereum’s Merge upgrade in September 2022, the network has sharply reduced ETH issuance. Ycharts data shows that issuers only circulated around 300,000 new ETH after this upgrade.
Furthermore, ethereum burns a portion of transaction fees forever, and validators must lock up large amounts of ETH to secure the network. Companies and institutions ramping up ETH accumulation in 2025 could further push the supply-demand imbalance.
Ethereum developer Binji compared ETH to an oil field that pumps out just one barrel daily, while Wall Street consumes six barrels. His point is that new ETH issuance is tiny compared to what institutions keep buying and holding.
“SharpLink Gaming and BitDigital have, in just one month, eaten up 82% of all the net new ETH issued since the Merge (298,770). Plus, spot ETFs hold 4.11 million ETH, which is 11x the net issuance. Basically, imagine an oil mine that yields one barrel a day while Wall Street swallows six,” Binji explained.
BeInCrypto reported that Bit Digital sold all its bitcoin holdings — 280 BTC worth around $28 million—and combined the proceeds with the $172 million raised through a public offering to buy 100,603 ETH worth about $254.8 million. Earlier, SharpLink Gaming raised $425 million specifically to buy more Ethereum.
These moves led well-known crypto analyst Pentoshi to predict that institutions will soon absorb all newly issued ETH.
“In less than one month, public companies will have bought enough ETH to offset all the ETH that’s been created since the Merge,” Pentoshi predicted.
Pentoshi and Binji both argue that ETH accumulation is still early. They believe ETH could transform into a mainstream deflationary asset.
However, some critics challenge this view. They argue that companies might hold ETH in their treasuries mainly to attract “exit liquidity” — so large investors can sell at higher prices.
These critics claim narratives that once fueled ETH’s price — like ICOs, DeFi, and NFTs — have lost strength. They say stablecoins now drive ETH demand. However, Ethereum could lose its leading position as more blockchains compete to host stablecoins.
“All ETH has for a narrative today is stablecoins. But do we really need a $300 billion decentralized blockchain just to trade IOUs? No. Many stablecoin chains will launch to compete with ETH. As for the ETH treasury companies, that’s just to attract exit liquidity,” investor John Galt said.
At the time of writing, ETH trades around $2,550. ETH’s price is still half of its all-time high from 2021.
