- Ethereum price climbed 5% to break to highs of $2,680 and rank among the top gainers on the day.
- The gains came as SharpLink Gaming announced plans to buy $425 million worth of ETH.
- SharpLink is adopting ETH as its primary treasury strategy.
Ethereum price rose more than 5% on Tuesday as the top altcoin benefited from an upside spark triggered by SharpLink Gaming’s announcement that it would be buying $425 million worth of ETH as part of its treasury strategy.
The price of ETH, which hovered below $2,530 earlier in the day, rose to above $2,680, with the price surging more than 5% amid market reaction.
Per CoinMarketCap, the uptick also saw Ethereum’s daily volume spike, reaching $23 billion after surging 81%.
ETH price going up also came as Standard Chartered shared insights suggesting the altcoin will outpace Solana (SOL) in 2025.
Notably, SOL price hovered around $177, largely flat on the day and just 6.8% up in the past week.
Comparatively, Ethereum has gained 8% in the week, not up by much as Bitcoin continued to accumulate around the $110k level.
SharpLink Gaming to buy $425 million of ETH
On Tuesday, as Trump Media announced it was raising $2.5 billion to buy Bitcoin, SharpLink Gaming, a Nasdaq-listed company, dropped its own huge announcement.
The company is looking to raise $425 million to buy Ethereum, with its funding coming from the offer of a private investment in public equity (PIPE) round.
The offer, backed by Ethereum development studio Consensys, seeks to offer 69,100,313 shares of its common stock at the price of $6.15 per share.
Aggregate proceeds of the raise, which will close on May 29, subject to closing conditions, will go into ETH as the company’s primary treasury asset.
“Consensys looks forward to partnering with SharpLink to explore and develop an Ethereum Treasury Strategy and to work with them in their core business as a strategic advisor. This is an exciting time for the Ethereum community, and I am delighted to work with Rob and the team to bring the Ethereum opportunity to public markets,” said Joseph Lubin, founder and chief executive officer of Consensys.
Lubin is also a co-founder of Ethereum. Consensys’ involvement in the deal was as a lead investor.
Meanwhile, top crypto venture capital firms and ecosystem players joined the initiative, with participants including Pantera Capital, ParaFi Capital, Electric Capital, Arrington Capital, and Galaxy Digital.
Others are crypto platform Ondo, VCs White Star Capital, GSR, Hivemind Capital, Hypersphere, and Primitive Ventures.
“This is a significant milestone in SharpLink’s journey and marks an expansion beyond our core business. On closing, we look forward to working with Consensys and welcoming Joseph to the Board,” Rob Phythian, founder and CEO of SharpLink, said in a statement.
Ethereum traded around $2,675 at the time of writing, with the price about 45% off its all-time high of $4,891 reached in November 2021.