SharpLink Gaming, a publicly traded firm building an Ethereum-heavy treasury, says 2026 will be the year it turns massive ETH holdings into productive, long-term yield — after a year of aggressive accumulation. Since implementing its treasury strategy last May, SharpLink has amassed more than 865,000 ETH — roughly $2.75 billion as of Tuesday — positioning the company among the largest corporate Ethereum treasuries. Last week the firm began deploying that capital for yield and ecosystem incentives, staking $170 million of ETH on Layer-2 network Linea to boost staking rewards and support protocol activity. “We want to be pioneers,” SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom said on FOMO Hour, a show from Rug Radio. “2025 was a year that DATs did their initial accumulation, 2026 needs to be the year of productivity. We own at this point nearly $3 billion in what I call ‘permanent capital.’ We had an ability to do something no one had done before.” Chalom — who joined SharpLink in July after leading BlackRock’s digital asset strategy — framed the company’s size and long-term mandate as a competitive advantage. Because SharpLink treats its ETH as multi-year capital rather than short-term inventory, it can pursue staking, restaking and other yield strategies that are harder for shorter-horizon investors to execute. According to the company, nearly all of its ETH is already earning yield through various protocols, and the recent Linea deployment is the start of broader “ETH productivity” plans. Chalom said the firm will maintain flexibility across a mix of positions: - native ETH staking, - restaking (staking with additional protocol layers), - liquid restaking tokens, - and a reserved opportunistic portion to provide financing or liquidity when attractive deals arise. That optionality could let SharpLink act as a lender or liquidity provider to other protocols — a use case Chalom described as pushing “the efficient frontier of what you can do if you have ‘permanent capital.’” The yield from staking also shapes SharpLink’s balance-sheet approach to market swings. “When ETH goes up, our stock price benefits. When ETH goes down, we have no reason to sell,” Chalom said. “And when it goes down, it’s a buying opportunity. We’re built for both cycles.” SharpLink’s stock (ticker: SBET) rose about 2.7% on Tuesday to trade near $10.53, though the shares have declined roughly 51% over the past six months. ETH itself was up about 3% in the last 24 hours, trading around $3,206. As digital-asset treasuries (DATs) expand across the industry, SharpLink’s approach — concentrating large, long-dated ETH holdings into diversified staking and yield strategies — will be one to watch in 2026 for signs of whether “permanent capital” can reshape how corporate crypto treasuries deploy their coins. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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