There’s a scene in The Hobbit where Bilbo stares up at the Lonely Mountain—Erebor.

It's massive. Glorious. Mythic.

And inside? The greatest hoard of treasure in Middle-earth, guarded by a dragon.

Now imagine that mountain made of Ethereum.

Because that’s where Peter Thiel just planted his flag.

Last week, we talked about the other Erebor—a new crypto bank backed by Anduril’s Palmer Luckey and Thiel’s Founders Fund.

Today, on the heels of crypto’s biggest week ever…

With major crypto rules coming into effect…

We’ll dive into Thiel’s latest bet: Ethereum.

The Great ETH Lock-Up Begins

BitMine, if you don’t know, is the crypto world’s answer to MicroStrategy—but for Ethereum.

Headed by Tom Lee, they’ve pivoted from traditional Bitcoin mining to building the largest ETH treasury on the planet. But they’re not just buying ETH—they’re staking it, compounding it, and treating it like a sovereign-grade asset.

For context on how quickly things are moving along…

On July 14, Bitmine first disclosed its holdings of 163,000 ETH (worth about $500 million).

Then, on July 16, it came to light that Thiel's Founders Fund quietly scooped up 9.1% of BitMine. 

By July 17, Bitmine had nearly doubled its ETH position to 300,000 ETH… over $1 billion.

Bitmine’s ultimate goal? Control 5% of all ETH—over 6 million coins. If that happens, BitMine becomes more than a treasury. It becomes Ethereum’s BlackRock.

BitMine’s not alone. Legacy BTC miners like BitDigital and BTC Digital are also embracing Ethereum and ETH staking.

And not to mention Sharplink Gaming (SBET), another Ethereum treasury company led by ConsenSys co-founder and Ethereum architect Joseph Lubin, aiming to buy $5 billion in Ethereum.

If all that’s not enough…

July 16th also marked the ETH ETF’s most explosive days.

That’s when $726.7 million surged into ETH ETFs.

BlackRock alone vacuumed up half a billion. Fidelity threw in over $100 million for good measure. Just like that, 4% of all ETH supply got tucked into institutional vaults.

It wasn’t just the biggest week for Ethereum—it was a flare in the sky.

Wall Street has arrived.

And the shelves are getting bare.

No ETH for You, Sir

Wintermute is one of the most successful companies in the bitcoin and crypto industry.

It’s a major crypto trading firm that helps big players—like hedge funds and ETFs—buy and sell large amounts of cryptocurrency without crashing the market.

Think of them as the behind-the-scenes dealer that keeps the pipes flowing smoothly when someone wants to buy millions in ETH without making headlines.

Right now, its founder, Evgeny Gaevoy, is signaling that the company is completely out of Ethereum.

The demand is there, but the supply is bare.

Exchange balances are scraping multi-year lows. Meanwhile, 30% of all ETH is staked, effectively gone from circulation.

The result? Ethereum now faces a potential 10× demand shock—the current amount of people trying to buy Ethereum is about ten times more than the amount of new Ethereum (18,000 per day) created.

Smaug-Sized Gains

Peter Thiel just made his move.

You know—the guy who co-founded PayPal, backed Facebook before it was Facebook, bet on Palantir, and called Bitcoin before anyone on Wall Street could spell “blockchain”...

Yeah, that guy.

He not only just backed a crypto bank focused on stablecoins…

He’s also buying deep into the crypto that quietly powers most of the world’s stablecoin activity: Ethereum.

Thiel isn’t the type to chase hype. He’s the type who builds the railroads before anyone realizes there’s gold in the hills.

You're not late.

You’re right on time.

And the biggest gains are yet to come—especially for specific, under-the-radar tokens.

More on that next week.