Markets responded with a 13% drop in share price after the company unveiled its $200 million Ether treasury plan.
Shares of Fundamental Global plunged today on the Nasdaq after the company announced a major strategic shift toward Ether (ETH) as its primary treasury asset. The firm revealed plans to allocate $200 million to ETH, funded through a private placement of 40 million common stock warrants priced at $5 each.
The move aligns Fundamental Global with other corporates building ETH treasuries. According to an announcement, the company aims to offer “multiple value drivers beyond ETH price appreciation,” including staking rewards and exposure to tokenized real-world assets.
Strategic investors backing the pivot include Galaxy Digital, which will manage the company’s ETH treasury; Kraken, which will assist with staking and treasury operations; and Hivemind Capital. As part of the pivot, Fundamental Global is changing its name to “FG Nexus.”
Despite the high-profile backing, markets reacted negatively to the announcement, with shares sliding 13.7% on the day, according to Google Finance.
The company joins a growing list of firms adopting Ether treasury strategies, following the path paved by early adopters of Bitcoin (BTC). According to Standard Chartered, crypto treasury firms have bought 1% of all circulating ETH since the beginning of June, a figure the bank projects could rise to 10%.
BitMine Immersion Technologies, a Bitcoin mining company, is currently the largest corporate holder of Ether, disclosing on Monday that it holds 625,000 ETH valued at roughly $2.35 billion. SharpLink, a Nasdaq-listed company, is the second-largest known holder. Between July 21 and 27, it accumulated $290 million worth of ETH at an average price of $3,756 per token.
Related: Ethereum at 10: The top corporate ETH holders as Wall Street eyes crypto
Ether Machine, a company focused on providing institutional-grade exposure to Ethereum infrastructure and yield strategies, also disclosed a major ETH purchase on Wednesday. The firm announced it had acquired nearly 15,000 ETH for a total of $56.9 million.
“With the regulatory clarity we’ve just started to get from DC, large institutions are finally able to build production ready systems on Ethereum and all of the use cases we’ve been discussing for the better part of a decade can finally become a reality,” Ether Machine co-founder and CEO David Merin told Cointelegraph. “I’ve never been more optimistic about the medium term prospects for Ethereum.”
The company’s announcements coincides with Ethereum’s 10-year anniversary on Wednesday.
