SharpLink plans to stake $200 million of ETH through Lido and receive wstETH, with Anchorage Digital set to hold the asset in custody. Using Kraken’s displayed ETH price of $1,889.84, the allocation equals about 106,000 ETH, roughly 12% of the company’s 888,938 ETH holdings reported as of Aug. 3.
The move adds another liquid-staking route to SharpLink’s treasury. The company said substantially all of its ETH had been deployed in staking as of June 28, split across native ETH, Liquid Collective’s LsETH, and Ether.fi’s weETH. It described Lido as an addition to that existing staking and restaking strategy.
Lido Added to Existing Treasury Structure
For SharpLink shareholders, wstETH introduces a widely used DeFi asset that continues to reflect Ethereum staking rewards while being used in onchain applications. The route disclosed by the company uses Lido’s open-source liquid-staking middleware and its wstETH token, with Anchorage providing custody.
SharpLink Chief Executive Joseph Chalom said Lido’s composability would allow the company to 「layer additional yield sources on top of our ETH exposure and staking returns」. Holding wstETH reflects Lido staking rewards. Any separate DeFi return would require deploying the token in another onchain strategy.
Breakdown of SharpLink’s ETH Holdings
SharpLink reported 886,725 ETH as of June 28, made up of 632,719 native ETH, 181,299 ETH on an as-redeemed basis from LsETH, and 72,707 ETH on an as-redeemed basis from weETH.
Those products represent different forms of staking exposure. Native ETH is deployed directly into Ethereum staking. LsETH represents staked ETH plus network rewards and can be used in DeFi. weETH includes base staking rewards and restaking economics through EigenLayer. Lido’s wstETH is a fixed-balance wrapped version of stETH whose underlying share system reflects accrued rewards and is designed for DeFi integrations.
Lido TVL and Yield Data
When DefiLlama’s data was read, Lido had about $17.9 billion in total value locked and accounted for 50.6% of tracked liquid-staking TVL. Its tracked supply APY was 2.2%. That figure measures Lido staking return only, not any added return or risk from using wstETH elsewhere.
Second-Quarter Revenue and Impairment
The planned allocation comes after a quarter in which staking supplied nearly all of SharpLink’s revenue, while its existing liquid staking and restaking tokens generated a large accounting charge. The company reported $11.2 million in staking revenue for the second quarter and a $76.1 million impairment on LsETH and weETH.
SharpLink said the impairment was noncash and did not reduce the number of tokens held. Under its accounting treatment, though, the charge cannot be reversed after a market recovery.