US stocks continue to hit new highs, Bitmine buys more than 560,000 ETH

Alphabet's strong performance and increased AI capital expenditure continue to drive US stock innovation to new highs. The number of initial US unemployment benefit claims slightly decreased on Thursday, with the market expecting the Federal Reserve to maintain interest rates unchanged next Wednesday (7/30). BTC remains stable above 118K. Led by Tom Lee, the Ethereum reserve enterprise Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) has increased its ETH holdings to 565,821 ETH, valued at over $2.04 billion, again becoming the world's largest ETH holder. The initial unemployment benefit claims for the week ending July 19 were 217,000, lower than the previous week's 221,000 and better than the market's estimated 227,000. After six consecutive weeks of decline in unemployment benefit applications, traders slightly reduced their bets on US interest rate cuts. The Federal Reserve will announce its interest rate decision next Wednesday (7/30), with 97% of traders expecting the benchmark rate to remain unchanged at 4.25-4.5%. US President Trump and Federal Reserve Chairman Powell jointly inspected the Fed headquarters renovation project. Trump also took the opportunity to pressure the Fed to cut rates but noted that dismissing Powell is not "necessary". JPMorgan analysts stated that capital inflows to digital assets have reached $60 billion year-to-date, driven by cryptocurrency capital flows, CME futures activity, and venture capital fundraising. Since late May, inflows have grown by nearly 50% and are expected to easily surpass last year's record total. Investor interest in Altcoins is also rising. Analysts note that Ethereum has been a primary beneficiary due to its dominance in DeFi and smart contracts, and increasing corporate ETH asset reserve adoption. Despite small capital outflows, BTC maintains most market share, remaining stable above 118K. Ethereum led a partial Altcoin rebound, but the Altcoin Season Index remains below 50 (currently 42), indicating it's not a complete risk preference rotation. US biotech company MEI Pharma (MEIP) officially announced on 7/22 raising $100 million and fully investing in Litecoin (LTC) as the company's primary reserve asset. They became the first publicly traded company to list LTC as a corporate financial reserve, bringing LTC founder Charlie Lee onto the board and engaging the renowned digital asset market maker GSR to manage the LTC reserve.

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Raising $100 Million to Buy LTC, Inviting Charlie Lee to the Board, GSR to Manage Reserves

MEI Pharma's this financing was conducted through a private placement, issuing 29,239,767 common shares (or equivalent warrants) at $3.42 per share, raising approximately $100 million, and will use all the raised funds to purchase LTC.

Following the private placement, MEI Pharma invited LTC founder Charlie Lee to join the board of directors, and the well-known market maker GSR was also hired as MEI's digital asset and reserve management consultant, responsible for implementing the LTC reserve strategy.

Besides Charlie Lee and GSR, the investors behind this private placement also include the LTC Foundation and multiple well-known crypto venture capital institutions, such as MOZAYYX, ParaFi, Hivemind, Primitive, RLH Capital, and Delta Blockchain.

What is LTC? Created to Improve BTC Transaction Efficiency

Litecoin (LTC) was created by former Google engineer Charlie Lee in October 2011, and is one of the earlier cryptocurrencies following the emergence of Bitcoin (BTC) in 2009. Its key technology involves modifying BTC's original code and reducing the block generation time from BTC's 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes to improve BTC's slow transaction speed and high transaction fees.

Due to LTC's fast transaction speed, low cost, high security, and suitability for daily small payments, it has maintained a certain position in the crypto market. Before the deadline, LTC's market value reached $9 billion.

Companies Successively Imitating MicroStrategy's Reserve Model, Investors Should Be Cautious

Following MicroStrategy's trend of public companies hoarding cryptocurrencies, many companies have been using a combination of stocks and crypto assets to attract investors. However, from past examples, many such crypto concept stocks could create impressive several-fold gains in the early stages, but stock prices would rise and fall sharply with announcements, often triggering circuit breakers and trading suspensions. Investors should pay attention to risk control and be cautious.

(You Provide Coins, I Provide Money: Revealing the Risks Behind Crypto Reserve Companies' Hype)