SharpLink Gaming Unveils $425M ETH Treasury, ETH Futures Surge

HomeNews* SharpLink Gaming will create the first Nasdaq-listed Ethereum treasury with a $425 million investment to acquire 120,000 ETH.

• Joe Lubin, Ethereum co-founder, supports SharpLink’s move, which aims to offer a public equity vehicle for ETH exposure.
• Ethereum futures open interest reached a new peak of $36.1 billion as Ether’s price rose 4.5% in one day.
• Analysts note a possible “supply compression” if the acquired ETH is staked, potentially impacting market liquidity.
• Despite price gains, Ethereum network fees and decentralized app activity have declined sharply in 2025. SharpLink Gaming, a Nasdaq-listed company, announced plans to establish the first public Ethereum (ETH) treasury by investing $425 million to buy 120,000 ETH. The company will fund this initiative through a private sale of roughly 69.1 million shares at $6.15 each.

• Advertisement - The effort is backed by Joe Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, and follows a strategy modeled after those successfully used for Bitcoin investments, such as the publicly known approach by MicroStrategy. Industry experts say this move allows investors to gain equity-based exposure to ETH through SharpLink’s shares.

Former Ethereum developer Eric Conner noted, “SharpLink’s acquisition could become a ‘public ETH proxy for funds that can’t hold tokens directly.’” Conner added that staking the purchased ETH could reduce the available supply, a process known as “supply compression.” He also highlighted the potential for ETH to be used as digital reserve collateral if it becomes more common for firms to hold it on their balance sheets via stock like SBET.

However, analyst VICTOR raised concerns about the risks, pointing out that Ethereum remains down 19% for the year, despite recent positive developments. In the first quarter of 2025, network fees on Ethereum fell significantly, dropping from $2.5 million to $605,000 in March and signaling lower decentralized application (DApp) activity.

Following SharpLink’s announcement, Ethereum futures open interest—which reflects the total value of outstanding futures contracts—hit an all-time high of $36.1 billion. Prices for Ether jumped 4.5% in a day, with analysts pointing to a pattern of leverage-driven price action. A CryptoQuant analyst noted that Ether has posted 48% gains over the past month but warned that most recent rallies led to negative returns or neutral moves, except for one short squeeze.

Technical analysis shows Ether’s price forming a “descending triangle,” a bullish chart pattern, and the relative strength index at 68.5 suggests continued strong momentum. The analyst known as Mo_XBT observed a technical “sandwich setup” and stated, “I have seen this set up many times the last month, it always lead up.”

Despite these market moves, Ethereum’s on-chain activity remains lower compared to previous periods, as shown by declining daily fees since early 2025. For more details on Ethereum network metrics, visit DefiLlama.

• Advertisement - This article does not contain investment advice; all investment and trading decisions involve risk, and readers should do their own research.

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