The startup will build tech and provide consulting to help institutions operate on Ethereum while maintaining confidentiality.
Bitmine, Sharplink and Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin are backing another Ethereum-focused non-profit called the Ethereum Institutional.
Consensys tapped Monad as Money Account's “home chain," and will initially use Morpho vaults to generate yield.
The Consensys leader told CoinDesk the Ethereum Foundation's role should be narrower and more focused on stewarding the network's core technology and values.
The MetaMask wallet builder had reportedly engaged bankers from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to lead the process.
The card lets users spend digital assets directly from their self-custodial wallets at various merchants.
At a panel discussion at Consensus Hong Kong 2026 featuring Sharplink Gaming Chairman Joe Lubin and CEO Joseph Chalom, the two executives outlined how digital asset treasuries are evolving into a distinct institutional strategy.
During an interview at Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Joseph Lubin argued that "blue chip" decentralized finance has reached parity with traditional banking.
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
The repurchase happened as the firm's stock price fell below the net asset value of its underlying ether holdings.
Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin ignited ETH discourse on August 30 with an unusually expansive thesis about the network’s monetary and institutional trajectory, arguing that Wall Street will migrate its core infrastructure onto Ethereum rails and that ETH “will likely 100x from here,” ultimately “flippen[ing] the Bitcoin/BTC monetary base.” “I am 100% aligned with almost all of what Tom @fundstrat says here,” Lubin wrote, before mapping out a future in which major financial firms “stake, run validators, [and] operate L2s/L3s,” build DeFi exposure and “write smart contract software for agreements, processes and financial instruments.” Related Reading: Ethereum Demand Climbs As Monthly Transactions Hit New All-Time High He singled out JPMorgan as a bank already steeped in Ethereum technology since “2014–2015.” “The one quibble that I have with what Tom has been saying… he is not nearly bullish enough,” Lubin added. “But the real problem is that it is not possible to be bullish enough.” Lubin’s Big Plans For Ethereum Lubin also attempted to puncture a popular narrative about scaling tradeoffs, contending that “the narrative of L2s cannibalizing L1 will very soon be shattered.” He pointed readers to Consensys’ Linea network and a newly public “Proof-of-Burn” initiative as examples of coordination mechanisms that could strengthen Ethereum’s base layer economics rather than dilute them. The second leg of Lubin’s thesis centered on tokenizing Ethereum’s burn into a transferable primitive dubbed BETH, introduced last week by the Ethereum Community Foundation (ECF). In follow-up posts, Lubin prodded the ecosystem to “dig into all the ramifications of tokenizing and explicitly accounting for burned ETH,” even floating a playful incentive experiment: “Would you burn a bit of ETH for [a @BanklessHQ] episode? … Would some of you send some of that BETH to @BanklessHQ?” Beyond media stunts, he sketched potential demand sinks and governance uses: “Would there be a growing demand for BETH as it takes on signaling and voting power in many different contexts?” Under the ECF design, BETH is an immutable ERC-20 that mints 1:1 when ETH is provably destroyed. The contract forwards deposits to the canonical burn address and issues BETH to the depositor; supply equals cumulative burned ETH by construction, with no admin keys and no redemption path back to ETH. This makes burn—not issuance—the productive act that yields a new asset representing alignment with scarcity. The reference implementation and contract address were published by ECF alongside a blog explainer. Related Reading: Ethereum To $5,500 In Weeks, $12,000 By Year-End, Tom Lee Predicts Lubin then speculated on derivative layers that might emerge on top of BETH—“BBETH, BBBETH, etc.”—as context-specific assets. He analogized this to early “colored coins” on Bitcoin, with a critical distinction: these “shades of BETH” would live natively in Ethereum’s token standards and tooling, eliminating the off-chain recognition problem that stymied first-generation experiments. “One could think of [BBETH/BBBETH] as a more refined element of ‘cracked ETH’… more scarce,” Lubin wrote, suggesting games and other constrained economies as potential testbeds. The near-term market framing came via Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, whose latest public commentary has been notably constructive on Ethereum’s institutional arc. Lee has argued that Wall Street’s operational stack is migrating to blockchains, that ETFs and staking rails provide investable wrappers for compliance-first capital, and that Ethereum could be the “biggest macro trade over the next ten to fifteen years.” Lubin, for his part, said the two “get on calls intermittently” to coordinate strategy in areas of overlap while “competing in highly differentiated ways.” At press time, ETH was trading around $4,399. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
The firm said it has roughly $200 million in untapped cash for further ETH acquisitions.
The firm said it bought 143,593 ether last week, bringing total holdings to 740,760 tokens.
SharpLink is rapidly positioning itself as a leader in corporate Ethereum holdings. The company is accelerating its accumulation strategy at unprecedented speed. Combined with its existing ETH holdings, the company might be on track to outpace every other ETH treasury holder in both speed and scale. Why SharpLink’s Ethereum Strategy Could Redefine Corporate Treasuries In an X post, CryptoGucci shared a short clip of Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin’s recent remarks about SharpLink Gaming. Lubin believes that the company isn’t just participating in the race, but it’s about to lap the competition. Related Reading: Ethereum Treasury Companies Go Head To Head As Bitmine Dwarfs SharpLink — Details According to Lubin, SharpLink Gaming (SBET) has rapidly emerged as one of the largest ETH accumulators on the planet, leveraging a strategy that goes far beyond simply holding ETH. The company actively manages its treasury to maximize productivity through staking, restaking, and compounding into some of the most powerful DeFi yield opportunities available. What sets SharpLink apart is its direct backing from the ETH company itself, which is a massive advantage that few competitors can claim. This relationship provides strategic alignment, insider insight, and access to key infrastructure, positioning SharpLink to move faster and more efficiently than any other treasury operator. The company is managed by some of the best DeFi investors in the world, combining institutional discipline with native crypto expertise. SharpLink’s approach is straightforward yet powerful. The process involves accumulating more ETH than anyone else, deploying it intelligently across high-yield opportunities, and generating steady returns while compounding for the long term. Why Ethereum Is Emerging As The Institutional Protocol Ethereum is gaining mainstream recognition at the institutional level. CryptoGucci has also shared a post where Cathie Wood, the founder and CIO of ARK Invest, laid out a bullish case for why Ethereum is becoming the institutional protocol of choice, which has captured the attention of the crypto and institutional investment communities. Related Reading: Ethereum Surpasses MasterCard In Asset Rankings, Bullish Targets Set Wood highlighted that major infrastructure developments are signaling ETH dominance. Coinbase L2 is built on ETH, Robinhood L2 leverages ETH, and the ongoing stablecoin that is predominantly occurring on the ETH network. Unlike Bitcoin treasuries, ETH treasuries offer both utility and staking opportunities, while creating a more productive institutional asset. ETH may carry slightly higher costs and operate at a slower speed than some alternatives, but its decentralization and security make it the most resilient and reliable choice for institutional adoption. This foundational robustness is enabling ARK ETFs to take their first substantial positions in ETH, while marking a pivotal moment for institutional adoption. ARK has also strategically invested in Tom Lee’s BitMine (BMNR), which is currently the largest ETH treasury in the world, while signaling an alignment between traditional investment strategies and Ethereum-based infrastructure. Wood concluded that the foundation of the next financial system is being laid out in real time, and it’s all happening on ETH. Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com
The ‘MicroStrategy’ of Ethereum has emerged, with Fundstrat’s Tom Lee and Joe Lubin making moves to advance their respective ETH treasuries. Tom Lee has emerged as the Chairman of BitMine, which will hold ETH, while Lubin is already the Chairman of SharpLink Gaming. Lee and Lubin Raise $675 Million for Ethereum Treasury Strategy Tom Lee and Joe Lubin have already advanced their plans to create the ‘MicroStrategy’ of Ethereum. On Tom Lee’s end, BitMine announced a $250 million private placement to raise capital for its Ethereum strategy. The Bitcoin mining company stated that the net proceeds of the offering will be used to acquire ETH, which will become the firm’s primary reserve asset. Related Reading: Crypto Analyst Predicts $10,000 ATH For Ethereum This Cycle, Here’s Why BitMine plans to close this private placement on or about July 3, as it aims to become one of the largest publicly traded ETH holders with Tom Lee as the Chairman of the Board. On the other hand, SharpLink Gaming, with Joe Lubin’s help, is already the largest publicly traded Ethereum holder. The company earlier launched its Ethereum treasury with a $425 million ETH purchase. SharpLink Gaming recently announced that it has increased its total ETH holdings to 198,167 ($475 million), further establishing its position as the ‘MicroStrategy’ of Ethereum. Between June 23 and 30, it acquired 9,468 ETH for $22.8 million at an average price of $2,411 per ETH. During that same period, SharpLink Gaming also raised an additional $24.4 million through its At-The-Market (ATM) facility, selling $2.5 million shares. The company revealed that most of the proceeds will go toward further Ethereum acquisitions. As of June 30th, 100% of its ETH is staked, and the firm has earned 222 ETH in rewards since it began an ETH treasury company. Plans To Mirror Saylor’s Strategy In an X post, crypto commentator Eric Conner commented on how Ethereum is getting its own MicroStrategy era thanks to Lee and Lubin’s experiments. He highlighted BitMine’s proposed KPI of ‘ETH per share,’ which mirrors Saylor’s playbook, except that ETH earns yield in this instance through staking. Related Reading: These Companies Are Following Saylor’s Strategy Into The Bitcoin Battleground With Over $2 Billion Slated To Buy BTC Conner further remarked that BitMine’s mining DNA lets it spin up validators and tap DeFi rails, turning a once-capital-intensive operation into a cash-flow engine secured by Ethereum. On the other hand, he noted that Joe Lubin and SharpLink Gaming’s move is bigger. SharpLink is already staking its ETH holdings and plans to explore other DeFi strategies. With this move, the crypto commentator declared that ETH becomes the reserve while yielding bankroll growth. Lubin also recently raised the possibility of adding leverage to SharpLink Gaming’s Ethereum strategy, which will mirror Saylor’s strategy. He stated that they may do convertible equity and issue bonds at low rates, without putting the strategy at risk. At the time of writing, the Ethereum price is trading at around $2,444, down in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com
The SEC accused the company’s wallet tool of being an unregistered securities broker.
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
The MetaMask creator survived by having redundant backup accounts, said Lubin, who was also personally targeted.
Max Resnick became increasingly critical of Ethereum’s layer 2 scaling approach in recent months, suggesting it should have focused its scaling efforts on the base layer like Solana.
The crypto industry is “going to save hundreds of millions of dollars” with Donald Trump as president, Consensys CEO Joe Lubin forecasts.
Donald Trump’s presidential election win was especially bullish for Ethereum, which has been held down by the SEC, Consensys CEO Joe Lubin said.
Consensys CEO Joe Lubin explains why the firm is taking legal action against the SEC, discusses Ethereum’s roadmap and the importance of Vitalik Buterin's continued involvement.
The Ethereum co-founder discusses why his firm decided to sue the SEC on stage at Consensus 2024.
Cantor Fitzgerald has been managing Tether’s now $90 billion Treasury portfolio since late 2021.