Large Share Sale to Finance Ethereum Investment
SharpLink Gaming, a US-based sports betting company, has submitted an offering with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell as much as $1 billion in common shares to fund an investment in Ether (ETH) based corporate treasury.
The move is a copy of the Bitcoin purchasing script utilized by MicroStrategy and co-founder Michael Saylor, with SharpLink using Ethereum as its target asset.
“We intend to utilize almost all of the net proceeds of this offering to buy Ether,” the company stated in a filing on May 30.
Strategic Shift Toward Ethereum
SharpLink announced the move on May 27 to an Ethereum-based treasury model and appointed Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin as board chairman. Shares of SharpLink surged 400% on one trading day following the announcement.
SharpLink also plans to utilize part of the proceeds for operations, affiliate marketing, and general corporate purposes.
Identifying Risks with ETH Holdings
The filing identified regulatory and marketplace risks of holding Ether to the extent. Risks include the potential to treat ETH as a security, increasing compliance expenses, and the threat to CBDCs to undermine the acceptance of private cryptocurrencies.
“The emergence of central bank digital currencies can potentially render private-sector issued cryptocurrencies obsolete or redundant,” SharpLink stated.
Known as Ethereum’s Michael Saylor
SharpLink’s move has drawn parallels with Michael Saylor, whose firm MicroStrategy holds in excess of 580,000 Bitcoin. Crypto commentators and analysts were quick to refer to SharpLink as “Ethereum’s Saylor.”
Crypto analyst 0xBoboShanti on X, “Ethereum finally has its own Saylor.” Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano added, “You are not bullish enough.”
Wider Ethereum Momentum
This comes amidst rising institutional demand for Ethereum. ETF provider REX Shares recently filed for Ethereum and Solana staking ETFs, suggesting that the very first staking-based crypto ETFs could come onstream in the US in the near future.
Ether is trading at $2,516 at time of writing, 4.51% lower over 24 hours but still 39.47% higher over the last 30 days, CoinMarketCap reports.
