BlackRock expanded its exposure to digital assets with on-chain data showing the asset manager bought about 65,167 Ether valued at roughly $272 million on 9 August. The same series of transactions also added 3,089 Bitcoin worth around $360 million. The latest purchases lift BlackRock’s estimated Ether holdings to about $9.4 billion, most of which has been accumulated in the past two months. The move comes as capital continues to shift toward Ether-linked products. Ether exchange-traded funds attracted an estimated $327 million in net inflows last week, outpacing Bitcoin ETFs for a third consecutive week, which drew about $253 million. The Ether-to-Bitcoin price ratio has risen 23 percent since the start of August. Separately, an industry consortium known as the Strategic Ether Reserve said it now holds more than 3 million Ether—worth roughly $12.83 billion—across 64 institutional participants. The cache represents about 2.5 percent of the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply and underscores a broader push by companies to secure long-term positions in the network’s native token. Growing institutional demand is fuelling speculation that Ether could challenge Bitcoin’s dominance. Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin told CNBC he believes Ether could surpass Bitcoin’s market capitalisation “within the next year or so,” citing the pace of corporate treasury allocations.