Yunfeng Financial purchases Ethereum,布局 Web3 infrastructure

Let me correct everyone first: what I wanted to express in yesterday's article is that the four-year cycle of the crypto ecosystem (rather than Bitcoin) may be disrupted due to the influx of entrepreneurs and the explosion of the ecosystem. As for Bitcoin, there are currently no signs that its four-year cycle is being broken.

In the past couple of days, the most eye-catching news in the crypto ecosystem is that Yunfeng Financial, closely related to Jack Ma, has purchased Ethereum as a strategic reserve for the company.

According to online information, Jack Ma personally holds 11% of Yunfeng Financial's shares, and in addition, he holds 47.25% of Yunfeng Financial's shares through Yunfeng Fund.

From the relevant data, it can be seen that Jack Ma has considerable influence in Yunfeng Financial. Therefore, many articles online interpret this action as Jack Ma strategically deploying Ethereum.

When I first saw this information, I immediately thought: since it is a strategic reserve, why not buy some Bitcoin? Then I remembered that Jack Ma once expressed a viewpoint in a public speech (the gist being): Bitcoin has no value, but blockchain technology is valuable.

In the announcement publicly released by Yunfeng Financial, there is a passage:

"Incorporating ETH into the company's strategic reserve assets aligns with the group's layout in cutting-edge fields such as Web3 and can provide key infrastructure support for the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA)."

"Achieving a comprehensive organic integration of finance and technology for clients, effectively enhancing clients' service experience and financial sovereignty."

Combining Jack Ma's previous viewpoints with the announcement released by Yunfeng, it becomes clear why the company bought Ethereum instead of Bitcoin:

The company is considering more from the perspective of technological infrastructure rather than financial investment.

Providing infrastructure support for businesses like RWA means it is best to operate Ethereum nodes themselves to strive for block packaging; "enhancing clients' service experience and financial sovereignty" further implies the need to operate Ethereum nodes themselves to strive for block packaging.

Apart from Yunfeng Financial, in Jack Ma's business landscape, Ant Group has been more active in the crypto ecosystem in recent years. Ant recently made a big announcement that the company is developing a layer-two expansion based on Ethereum, preparing to lay out the RWA ecosystem.

Now, Yunfeng Financial's actions perfectly resonate with Ant Group.

I recall Tom Lee once said he believes banks will buy a lot of Ethereum in the future because banks need to operate their own Ethereum nodes to carry out their business.

Yunfeng Financial's current behavior validates Tom Lee's previous prediction.

From a liquidity perspective, Yunfeng is buying Ethereum from the perspective of infrastructure construction, so this operation is less likely to sell easily due to price fluctuations, thus firmly locking in Ethereum's liquidity.

According to Yunfeng Financial (HK 0376) financial data for the end of 2024, its total investments amount to approximately HKD 78.9 billion. The total amount spent on this purchase of Ethereum is about HKD 340 million (USD 44 million), which is indeed a very small figure in its entire investment landscape, accounting for less than 0.5%.

Therefore, while this investment is eye-catching to the public, for the company, it is basically just a slight trial.

Interestingly, the price at which it bought Ethereum.

According to information, the company invested a total of USD 44 million to purchase 10,000 Ethereum, making the average price around USD 4,400.

In light of other companies that have entered the market to buy Ethereum in large quantities during this round (such as SharpLink, BMNR, etc.), their initial purchase price was around USD 3,000 to USD 4,000, and they continued to buy more afterward.

So, overall, the price range for companies entering the market to buy Ethereum is approximately between USD 3,500 and USD 4,400.

This price range will create a psychological hint for subsequent buyers.

The pricing power of Bitcoin has completely shifted from retail investors to institutions, and this trend is now repeating itself with Ethereum.

In the future, as more institutions and funds enter the market to purchase Ethereum, I believe that the psychological reference price of USD 3,500 to USD 4,400 will become their benchmark.

The market is currently bullish, and when this round of bull market ends and the next round begins, I estimate that it will be very difficult for Ethereum's price to drop below USD 3,500.