SharpLink to Stake $200 Million in Ether Through Lido
SharpLink is a digital-asset treasury manager focused on holding and deploying ether, part of a broader corporate shift toward making crypto reserves productive rather than leaving them idle. Lido allows holders to stake ETH while receiving liquid tokens, while wstETH is a non-rebasing wrapper designed for decentralized-finance applications. The structure combines Ethereum staking income with collateral mobility, though it also introduces smart-contract, liquidity and protocol-governance risks.
On Aug. 14, 2026, SharpLink said it would stake about 106,000 ETH, valued at $200 million, through Lido and hold the resulting position as wstETH. Anchorage Digital will custody the tokens, adding institutional safeguards while the assets remain usable in DeFi. The move lets SharpLink continue earning staking rewards without surrendering the liquidity and composability needed for lending, collateral or other onchain strategies.
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The history behind this eventLido Moves $16.5 Billion in Staked Ether to Cut Ethereum Validator Count
Lido is Ethereum’s largest liquid-staking protocol, allowing ETH holders to earn staking rewards while retaining a tradable token, stETH. Its overhaul builds on Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, activated in May 2025, which introduced 0x02 validators with a maximum effective balance of 2,048 ETH, up from 32 ETH. By concentrating more stake in each validator, the design can reduce the number of validators and ease consensus-layer overhead without directly lowering gas fees or accelerating transactions.
On July 27, 2026, Lido began its biggest core-protocol upgrade since V2 in 2023, consolidating more than 8 million staked ETH, valued at about $16.5 billion, into Curated Module v2. Lido expects the migration to cut Ethereum’s validator count by roughly one-third and reduce attestation messages by about 29% per epoch. All 34 existing curated node operators are expected to move to the module and, for the first time, post locked ETH bonds that can absorb losses tied to slashing or operational failures.
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