SharpLink Gaming to deploy $200M in Ethereum treasury on Linea for DeFi yield and AI integration

SharpLink Gaming will start using its Ethereum treasury for passive income. The company plans to pour $200M into the Linea ecosystem.

SharpLink Gaming announced plans to deploy $200M in ETH on the Linea ecosystem. The deployment of ETH capital will include EtherFi and Eigen Cloud. With this move, SharpLink will receive DeFi yield and incentives while tapping into Ethereum’s emerging AI market.

SharpLink will deploy the ETH through its custodial storage with Anchorage Digital Bank, setting up an example for other ETH treasuries.

SharpLink Gaming is the second-largest corporate holder with 859.40K ETH valued at around $3.56B, second to BitMine, which now holds over 3M ETH. The expectation is that large-scale ETH owners, including treasury companies and ETFs, may stake a part of their tokens for passive income.

The earmarked ETH will be deployed to Linea over a multi-year commitment period. The Linea L2 network will thus start carrying institutional finance, unlocking the value of ETH to make the treasury even more valuable through on-chain yield.

Linea locks in over $1B

Linea already holds over $1B in deposited value on multiple apps. Linea will help SharpLink tap native Ethereum yield from staking, rewards from Eigen Cloud deposits and services, as well as direct Linea and EthereFi partner incentives.

‘As one of the largest public holders of ETH, we manage our treasury with institutional rigor and discipline. This deployment enables us to access the best of Ethereum’s staking, restaking, and DeFi yield, while maintaining the institutional safeguards our stockholders expect,’ said Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of SharpLink.

With this move, SharpLink singles out Linea as capable of carrying institutional-grade finance. Eigen Cloud, currently the top re-staking protocol, carries over 60% of all deposited ETH into similar apps.

The recent SharpLink move also follows attempts to make Ethereum a programmable environment, capable of carrying more complex apps with staking-based security. Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, founder of ConsenSys, and Chairman of SharpLink, stated that ETH holdings could be made more productive through EtherFi as the primary staking solution.

ETH treasuries break above 6M

Ethereum treasury companies have not stopped expanding their reserves, reaching a total of 6.06M ETH. The total represents 5.01% of the entire Ethereum supply.

SharpLink gaming expanded its treasury by 2.5% in the past month, while BitMine added another 25% to its holdings in a more aggressive acquisition strategy.

Currently, SharpLink gaming has a mNAV value of 0.86, meaning its shares are trading below the value of its ETH holdings. SBET shares traded at $14.21, down from a peak above $79. While the initial hype for DAT company shares has diminished, the capabilities of ETH are still growing, based on lending, DeFi and other forms of available yield.