The Ether Machine (ETHM), a crypto investment vehicle preparing to go public through a merger with Dynamix Corporation, said on Tuesday it has secured an additional 150,000 ether (ETH), worth about $654 million, from Jeffrey Berns, the founder of Blockchains.
The latest commitment brings the company’s total ETH owned or pledged to 495,362 ETH, valued at about $2.16 billion, the press release said.
The firm also has up to $367.1 million reserved for further purchases, assuming Dynamix shareholders don’t redeem their shares before the merger closes.
Berns, who has backed Ethereum as a platform for digital identity and internet infrastructure, is expected to join The Ether Machine’s board once the transaction finalizes later this year. His investment follows a prior anchor commitment of 169,984 ETH ($741 million) from The Ether Machine’s co-founder and chairman Andrew Keys.
The firm also plans to pursue a third fundraising round of at least $500 million with Citibank leading the effort, Keys said in an interview with Reuters.
The Ether Machine is part of a growing roster of public firms pursuing a strategy to acquire ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency. ETH treasury companies, led by BitMine and SharpLink Gaming, has already bought up nearly 4% of the token’s supply, a dashboard by strategicethreserve.xyz shows.
Read more: BitMine Immersion Boosts Ether Holdings to $8.1B, With $623M in Cash for More Purchases