SharpLink Gaming, a leading sports betting platform, has made a bold move by purchasing 176,271 Ether, equivalent to $463 million, consequently becoming the biggest publicly traded holder of ETH worldwide. The company made this announcement on Friday, revealing that the purchase was facilitated by private placement and at-the-market equity sales, which includes $79 million raised since May 30. The average price per coin was approximately $2,626.
SharpLink now has over 95% of its ETH deployed in staking and liquid staking platforms, thereby contributing to Ethereum’s network security and simultaneously earning yield. CEO Rob Phythian referred to this as a “defining moment” for SharpLink and a significant advancement for public company adoption of digital assets, with ETH being the company’s “primary treasury reserve asset”.
SharpLink’s strategy is reminiscent of MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin-buying strategy, but with a focus on Ethereum, making it the first public company to primarily hold ETH as its core treasury reserve asset. Its objective is to provide shareholders with “meaningful economic exposure to ETH.”
Despite being the largest publicly traded holder of Ether, other entities hold more ETH, such as the Ethereum Foundation with 214,129 ETH ($594 million) in its treasury. Some ETFs providers like BlackRock also hold bigger amounts of Ether, albeit on behalf of their clients. For instance, the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF held about 1.7 million ETH as of June 12, worth approximately $4.5 billion.
The company’s decision has stirred controversy as their share price skyrocketed over 400% after its May 27 ETH treasury announcement. However, following an S‑3 SEC filing announcement earlier this week, shares crashed by about 73% in after‑hours trading on Thursday, precipitated by a misunderstanding.
