SharpLink Gaming, one of the largest publicly traded Ethereum holders, announced plans on Tuesday to deploy $200 million worth of ETH from its treasury to the Linea layer 2 network.
The rollout will take place over several years using risk management strategies, the company said in a statement, and will take place in collaboration with Linea creator Consensys. (Disclaimer: Consensys is one of 22 investors in an editorially independent company. Decrypt.)
The initiative allows SharpLink to generate enhanced returns on its ETH holdings through multiple sources: native Ethereum staking rewards, self-securing EigenCloud verifiable service staking rewards, and incentives from Linea and its partner Ether.fi.
SharpLink said all operations will maintain institutional-grade security through its ETH custodian, Anchorage Digital Bank.
“As one of the largest public holders of ETH, we manage our treasury with institutional rigor and discipline,” Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of SharpLink, said in a statement. “This deployment allows us to access the best yield from Ethereum staking, restaking and DeFi, while maintaining the institutional guarantees expected by our shareholders.”
“This is a fundamental step in our broader strategy to responsibly generate enhanced staking yield and optimize cash flow performance in a way that maximizes shareholder value,” he added, “and marks the start of a much broader effort.”
Beyond immediate returns, the partnership aims to create a pioneering institutional capital markets infrastructure on Ethereumincluding on-chain capital raises, programmable liquidity tools, and tokenized equity strategies.
Chalom already said Decrypt that the company was considering how best to leverage Linea for yield ahead of the LINEA token launch last month. SharpLink is a member of the Linea Consortium, a collective of companies and projects helping to distribute token rewards and drive adoption of Layer 2 scaling network.
“When you hold billions of dollars of ETH and are considering a staking wallet, you will have the opportunity to deploy it through staking opportunities on Linea,” Chalom said. Decrypt early September.
SharpLink Makes First Ethereum Purchase in Over a Month as ETH Holdings Surpass $3.5 Billion
SharpLink is currently the second largest publicly traded Ethereum holder with nearly 860,000 ETH, worth approximately $3.56 billion. The company’s stock price is up slightly on the day, with SBET recently trading at $14.34.
Ethereum is on the rebound, rising 8% over the past seven days to a recent price of $4,169 after dipping below $3,700 earlier this month. Users of Myriad, a prediction market created by DecryptDastan’s parent company, remains optimistic about ETH’s next move, giving a near 79% chance of ETH reaching a price of $4,500 sooner than plunging to $3,100.
