SharpLink to Deploy $200M in ETH on Consensys’ Linea — Is This the Future of Institutional DeFi and AI-Powered Yields?

SharpLink Gaming, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBET), one of the world’s largest corporate holders of Ethereum, has announced plans to deploy $200 million in ETH from its corporate treasury onto Linea, the Ethereum Layer-2 network developed by Consensys.

The move marks a huge collaboration between SharpLink, ether.fi, EigenCloud, and Anchorage Digital Bank — showing a new institutional pathway for onchain yield generation through DeFi infrastructure.

Institutional Treasury Meets DeFi Innovation

SharpLink’s ETH will be deployed through Anchorage Digital Bank, its qualified custodian, and allocated into a combination of staking, restaking, and AI-yield strategies built on Linea’s zkEVM architecture.

The strategy combines Ethereum staking rewards, EigenCloud restaking incentives, and native Linea yield programs, offering the company diversified ETH-denominated returns.

SharpLink’s Co-CEO Joseph Chalom describes the initiative as a defining moment in institutional crypto treasury management. “As one of the largest public holders of ETH, we manage our treasury with institutional rigor. This deployment allows us to access Ethereum’s best staking and DeFi yields, while maintaining the security and compliance expected by our stockholders,” he said.

Chalom added that the partnership reflects SharpLink’s broader strategy to responsibly enhance yield and unlock scalable treasury performance while advancing Ethereum’s global adoption.

Linea: Building Ethereum’s Institutional Layer

Linea — developed by Consensys, the firm behind MetaMask and Infura — is positioned as Ethereum’s high-performance, zkEVM Layer-2 designed for enterprises and institutions.

According to Joseph Lubin, Consensys’ Founder and CEO (and Ethereum co-founder), Linea is part of a long-term vision to make ETH more “productive” for institutional capital. “Through this collaboration, SharpLink’s ETH will earn enhanced native yield through Linea’s ecosystem partners, ether.fi and EigenCloud. It’s a model we believe other institutions will adopt,” Lubin said.

AI-Powered Yields and Verifiable Infrastructure

Sreeram Kannan, Founder and CEO of Eigen Labs, emphasized that this partnership lays the groundwork for a new “verifiable economy” where AI, DeFi, and trustless infrastructure intersect.

“SharpLink’s commitment positions them at the foundation of a verifiable economy — one that supports AI workloads, insured DeFi, and trustless infrastructure secured by ETH,” Kannan noted.

By leveraging EigenCloud’s Autonomous Verifiable Services (AVSs), SharpLink’s deployed ETH will not only earn staking returns but also secure decentralized AI models and computational workloads.

Paving the Way for Institutional DeFi

Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley framed the collaboration as the dawn of Ethereum’s “institutional era.” — “At Anchorage Digital, we’re proud to power SharpLink’s staking solution on Linea — proving that innovation and compliance can move in lockstep,” he said.

This $200 million ETH deployment is expected to be the first phase of a multi-year commitment, with SharpLink and Consensys planning to co-develop programmable liquidity tools, tokenized equity models, and institutional-grade DeFi products.

The message is clear: Ethereum’s next growth phase is not just decentralized — it’s institutional, verifiable, and AI-driven.