SharpLink plans $200M ETH stake through Lido

Nasdaq-listed SharpLink plans to stake $200 million of Ether through Lido and hold the resulting wrapped staked ETH with Anchorage Digital, expanding its strategy for generating returns from its corporate Ethereum treasury. 

The company announced the allocation on Aug. 13 but did not disclose a transaction hash or timetable showing that the full deployment had already been completed.

The allocation comes days after SharpLink reported holding 888,938 ETH and ETH equivalents as of Aug. 3. Its latest quarterly filing shows staking has already become its main revenue source, producing $11.2 million of its $11.5 million in second-quarter revenue.

SharpLink adds Lido without buying another $200M of ETH

The transaction is a deployment of SharpLink’s existing Ethereum treasury, not an announcement that it will purchase another $200 million of ETH. The company will put ETH through Lido and receive wstETH, an ERC-20 token representing a share of ETH staked through the protocol.

Unlike stETH, wstETH does not increase its token balance as rewards accrue. Instead, its exchange value against stETH changes. That design makes it easier to integrate into DeFi applications that do not support rebasing tokens, according to Lido’s documentation.

Lido says roughly $16.5 billion of ETH is currently staked through its protocol, while its liquid staking assets are integrated with more than 100 protocols and about $10 billion is actively used as collateral or in other applications. SharpLink has not named any DeFi protocol where it will deploy the new wstETH after receiving it.

Anchorage Digital gives the strategy a regulated custody layer

Anchorage Digital will custody SharpLink’s wstETH. The arrangement follows Anchorage’s July integration with Lido, which lets institutional clients mint and redeem wstETH while using its custody platform. Anchorage Digital Bank is an OCC-chartered national trust bank.

The Lido allocation expands a treasury strategy that already includes native staking, liquid staking and restaking. SharpLink allocated $200 million of ETH to Linea restaking programs involving ether.fi and EigenCloud. It later committed $100 million to a Galaxy-managed $125 million onchain yield fund.

CEO Joseph Chalom said the Lido allocation would make SharpLink’s ETH “even more productive” and give the company access to wstETH’s DeFi integrations. Those returns are not guaranteed. Lido itself warns that staking rewards vary and users face smart contract, slashing, withdrawal, liquidity and market risks.

U.S. rules give liquid staking a clearer but limited path

The U.S. regulatory backdrop is also relevant for the Nasdaq-listed company. SEC Corporation Finance staff said in August 2025 that certain liquid staking arrangements, depending on their structure and facts, do not involve securities transactions. The statement is staff guidance rather than a Commission rule and does not cover every liquid staking model.

SharpLink also faces accounting effects from holding liquid staking tokens. In its second-quarter results, the company recorded a $76.1 million impairment on existing LsETH and weETH positions. As previously reported, those charges contributed to SharpLink’s $394.3 million second-quarter net loss. SharpLink has not disclosed how the new wstETH position will be classified in its accounts.

What happens next for SharpLink’s $200M allocation

The next concrete step is the actual movement of ETH into Lido and receipt of wstETH at Anchorage Digital. SharpLink’s announcement did not disclose a deployment schedule, expected staking rate or additional DeFi strategy for the tokens.

SharpLink shares were last trading at $6.32 on Aug. 13, up about 2.27% from the previous close, after the staking plan was announced before the U.S. session. ETH traded near $1,625. Those price moves coincided with the announcement but do not establish that it caused either move.