Planning to raise another $1 billion, online casino marketing firm SharpLink is accumulating an Ethereum treasury, with Lubin as Chairman of the Board
Consensys CEO Joe Lubin is one step closer to becoming Ethereum’s Michael Saylor.
On June 2, online casino marketing firm SharpLink Gaming closed a $425 million funding round, led by Consensys, to build an Ethereum treasury.
As a result of the deal, Ethereum co-founder Lubin becomes Chairman of NASDAQ-listed SharpLink’s board of directors.
“This partnership with SharpLink represents more than just a financial milestone,” Lubin said in the release. “It reflects the growing recognition across capital markets that programmable assets like ETH play an important role today in how value, trust, and financial systems are structured globally.”
SharpLink’s $425 million raise comes on the heels of a May 30 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, which revealed the company’s intention to raise an additional $1 billion. “Substantially all” of that will be used to buy Ether.
As executive chairman of Strategy, Saylor has purchased more than 581,000 BTC, currently worth $60.6 billion, for his firm’s Bitcoin treasury strategy. This appears to be the strategy that SharpLink is pursuing, on a smaller scale, with the No. 2 cryptocurrency. Lubin told Bloomberg he began thinking about an Ethereum Treasury six months ago after a dinner with Saylor.
A number of prominent investors participated in the SharpLink funding round, including ParaFi Capital, Electric Capital, Pantera Capital, Arrington Capital, Galaxy Digital, Ondo, White Star Capital, GSR, Hivemind Capital, Hypersphere, Primitive Ventures, and Republic Digital. SharpLink CEO Rob Phythian and CFO Robert DeLucia also participated.
Few Ethereum Treasuries
SharpLink said it intends to build the “largest Ethereum treasury strategy in the public markets.”
While a growing number of firms are investing in Bitcoin, Ethereum-focused treasuries are scarce among public companies.
KPMG’s Canadian arm added both Bitcoin and Ether to its treasury back in 2022, but Ethereum treasuries are few outside of the crypto company sphere. In December, Hong Kong-based gaming firm Boyaa Interactive announced it had traded its $49 million worth of ETH for BTC. Hong Kong-based app maker Meitu also had a large store of ETH and BTC, but the South China Morning Post reported in December that it had sold those holdings.
Crypto exchange Coinbase is reportedly holding a substantial amount of ETH in its corporate treasury, while crypto miner Bit Digital reported having approximately 24,400 ETH, with most of it staked to earn a yield in ETH as of March 31.
SharpLink Soars 1,500%
SharpLink’s stock dropped almost 50% today to $48 from its May 29 high of $92.87.
However, SharpLink’s SBET was trading at just $3.58 before its May 27 announcement that the deal was in place and expected to close soon. At the current price, that represents a 1,500% increase since the announcement of its Ethereum Treasury plan.
ETH is currently trading at $2,600, up 43% over the past month following the successful Pectra upgrade.
