Sharplink to deploy $200M of ETH on Linea to unlock DeFi yields

SharpLink Gaming has announced plans to deploy $200 million worth of Ether (ETH) from its corporate treasury onto Consensys’ Linea network.

The company said the multi-year initiative will use Linea’s zkEVM layer-2 infrastructure to generate onchain yield and increase the efficiency of its ETH holdings. According to Tuesday’s press release, the strategy aims to capture “highly competitive, differentiated, risk-adjusted ETH-denominated returns.”

SharpLink plans to generate yields from staking, restaking rewards earned by helping secure EigenCloud’s decentralized verification services (AVSs), and incentives from Linea and ether.fi — a decentralized liquid staking and restaking protocol.

Staking refers to locking up cryptocurrencies to help secure a blockchain network in exchange for rewards. Restaking builds on that idea by allowing users to reuse or “restake” their staked assets to support additional decentralized services and earn extra rewards.

The $200 million deployment will be managed under institutional safeguards through Anchorage Digital Bank, SharpLink’s qualified custodian.

SharpLink is currently the second-largest corporate holder of ETH, with 859,853 ETH worth about $3.57 billion, or 0.71% of total supply, according to CoinGecko data. The planned deployment represents roughly 5.6% of its treasury.

Top 5 Ethereum treasury companies. Souce: Coingecko

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DeFi yield strategies

SharpLink isn’t alone in turning to decentralized finance to boost onchain returns.

On Sept. 2, ETHZilla (ETHZ) announced it would deploy $100 million of ETH to ether.fi to enhance yield on its treasury holdings. ETHZilla is currently the fifth-largest Ethereum digital asset treasury (DAT), holding 102,326 ETH at the time of writing.

In February the Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit that supports Ethereum’s core development and ecosystem, deployed 45,000 ETH into DeFi protocols, including Spark and Compound. The foundation’s treasury policy from June disclosed plans to move beyond passive holdings by staking and deploying ETH across DeFi protocols.

Centralized exchanges have also begun integrating DeFi yield strategies. In September, Coinbase partnered with DeFi lending protocol Morpho to let users lend USDC (USDC) stablecoins and earn yields of up to 10.8%.

Less than a month later, Crypto.com announced plans to integrate Morpho into its Cronos blockchain, allowing users to deposit wrapped ETH and other assets to earn stablecoin yields through new lending vaults, which is expected later this year.

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