SharpLink, the Ethereum digital asset treasury, is confident that institutional adoption is increasing despite falling spot prices.
The past few months have been volatile for the price of ETH, the company said on Wednesday on X. The asset has consolidated around bear market lows of $2,000 since early February and has yet to reach pre-crash levels.
Nonetheless, “structural indicators of long-term institutional adoption of Ethereum have continued to grow,” SharpLink said.
Sharplink Gaming is the second largest Ether DAT in the world with 863,000 ETH worth approximately $1.89 billion. However, it has not made any other significant purchases since October 2025.
Staking, ETFs and RWA Momentum
The company highlighted several key indicators for its thesis, including the continued increase in total value staked. Staking deposits have not slowed down during bear markets, including a 50% price decline from the 2025 peak, he said. There are currently 38.7 million ETH staked, worth approximately $89 billion, which equates to 32% of the total supply.
“Conviction in Ethereum’s yield layer increases regardless of price.”
Additionally, long-term holders have not flinched in the face of the bear market decline, with each cohort holding ETH for over six months maintaining their position despite the recent volatility.
He also observed that short-term ETH holders were breaking even with MVRV sitting at 1.0, indicating that “recent buyers have no significant profit to sell and loss cutters have eliminated.”
“At the same time, exchange balances have fallen to 15 million ETH, a multi-year low. Less ETH available for sale. Less incentive to sell it. It’s a supply constraint.”
Meanwhile, U.S. ETH ETF spot flows turned positive in April after several months of net outflows as investors turned their attention back to regulated ether products, even in a month that included a major DeFi exploit, he said.
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The last few months have been volatile for the price of ETH. But at the same time, structural indicators of Ethereum’s long-term institutional adoption have continued to grow.
A look at the data. 🧵
– Sharp Link (@Sharplink) May 12, 2026
SharpLink also noted Ethereum’s dominance in tokenizing real-world assets, and this week’s announcement that BlackRock said it would begin tokenizing an existing multi-billion dollar money market fund on Ethereum. Also this week, JP Morgan announced the launch of a second tokenized money market fund on Ethereum.
“These are not separate trends. They are the same story told in different ways,” SharpLink said.
“On-chain tokenizing asset managers choose Ethereum. Stablecoins settle on Ethereum. Autonomous agents operate on Ethereum.”
Meanwhile, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy and SharpLink launched a $125 million Ethereum-powered DeFi yield fund this week.
Not reflected in ETH prices
Despite these strong fundamentals, Ether spot prices remain deflated. ETH fell back to its lowest level in almost two weeks, just above $2,250 in late trading on Tuesday, following US CPI and rising inflation.
It managed to climb back to just below $2,300 during Asian trading on Wednesday, but failed to surpass it at the time of writing.
The asset has been tightly constrained over the past month and remains down nearly 54% from its August 2025 all-time high, so these institutional adoption fundamentals are not yet reflected in the spot markets.
