SharpLink Gaming has announced a significant strategic initiative to deploy $200 million worth of Ether (ETH) from its corporate treasury onto Consensys’ Linea network. This multi-year plan aims to leverage Linea’s zkEVM layer-2 infrastructure to generate onchain yield and enhance the efficiency of its ETH holdings. The company stated that this strategy is designed to capture "highly competitive, differentiated, risk-adjusted ETH-denominated returns."
The deployment will involve generating yields through several avenues: staking, restaking rewards from contributing to EigenCloud’s decentralized verification services (AVSs), and incentives offered by Linea and ether.fi, a decentralized liquid staking and restaking protocol. Staking involves locking cryptocurrencies to secure a blockchain network in return for rewards, while restaking allows users to reuse their staked assets to support additional decentralized services and earn further returns.
For security and institutional compliance, the $200 million deployment will be managed under the safeguards provided by Anchorage Digital Bank, which serves as SharpLink’s qualified custodian.
SharpLink Gaming is recognized as the second-largest corporate holder of ETH, possessing 859,853 ETH, valued at approximately $3.57 billion, which represents 0.71% of the total supply, according to CoinGecko data. The planned deployment constitutes roughly 5.6% of its total treasury.
DeFi Yield Strategies Gaining Traction Among Institutions
SharpLink Gaming's move into decentralized finance (DeFi) for enhanced onchain returns is part of a growing trend among institutional players.
Previously, on September 2, ETHZilla (ETHZ) announced its intention to deploy $100 million of ETH to ether.fi for restaking initiatives aimed at boosting yield on its treasury holdings. ETHZilla is currently the fifth-largest Ethereum digital asset treasury (DAT), holding 102,326 ETH at the time of that announcement.
In February, the Ethereum Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Ethereum’s core development and ecosystem, deployed 45,000 ETH into DeFi protocols, including Spark and Compound. The foundation's treasury policy, disclosed in June, outlined plans to diversify beyond passive holdings by actively staking and deploying ETH across various DeFi protocols.
Centralized exchanges are also increasingly integrating DeFi yield strategies. In September, Coinbase partnered with the DeFi lending protocol Morpho, enabling users to lend USDC stablecoins and potentially earn yields of up to 10.8%.
Less than a month later, Crypto.com revealed plans to integrate Morpho into its Cronos blockchain. This integration is expected later this year and will allow users to deposit wrapped ETH and other assets to earn stablecoin yields through new lending vaults.