Cryptocurrency-linked stocks rallied in premarket trading on Friday, led by firms with exposure to ether, after the digital token surged to a six-month high.

Shares of BitMine Immersion Technologies jumped 14%. The company, which holds around $1 billion worth of ether, has drawn attention with tech billionaire Peter Thiel as its top investor and Fundstrat’s Tom Lee serving as chairman. BitMine announced on Thursday that it had accumulated over 300,000 ether in three weeks and aims to acquire about 5% of the total ether supply, currently estimated at 120.71 million tokens.

Other ether-holding companies also saw gains. Bit Digital rose 4%, while BTCS climbed 12.5%. SharpLink, which has been building its ether treasury through stock sales, saw its shares rise 5.6% after announcing it would increase its ongoing $1 billion share sale plan by another $5 billion.

Ether traded as high as $3,675.81, its highest level since January 6, and was last up 5% at $3,601.40. It outperformed bitcoin, which dipped 0.7% to $118,961 after hitting a record $123,153 earlier in the week.

The rise in ether prices has been attributed to growing demand for stablecoins—U.S.-dollar-pegged digital tokens that mostly operate on the Ethereum blockchain. This trend has been further accelerated by the recent success of Circle’s IPO and legislative developments. On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a major step for the digital asset industry.

Matthew Dibb, CIO at Astronaut Capital, said institutional accumulation of ether is being driven by the expanding use of stablecoins. “Ethereum is by far the biggest beneficiary of stablecoin usage,” he noted.

Meanwhile, crypto exchange Coinbase gained 2%, and Circle Internet rose 2.7%. Among crypto ETFs, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust has risen 10% this month, while the ether-focused ETHA has surged nearly 36%.