Author: Nancy, PANews
As early entrants like MicroStrategy have firmly established their voice, new institutions find it difficult to replicate their market recognition and capital returns, leading more companies to shift their focus towards Ethereum. Compared to simple asset appreciation, Ethereum is opening its doors to institutions in another way, not only providing stable and sustainable on-chain yields but also allowing these institutional stakers to transform into 'miners', deeply participating in ecological construction and accelerating the entire staking sector's evolution towards compliance and scaling.
Institutional bets on Ethereum, from asset reserves to staking 'big miners'
Bitcoin has once again reached a historical high, with the driving force shifting from retail investors to institutional collaboration. The approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs has built a compliant bridge for Wall Street's entry; companies represented by Strategy have significantly appreciated their balance sheet assets by listing BTC as financial reserve assets, gaining high recognition in the capital market and enhancing Bitcoin's credibility as an asset allocation, subsequently attracting more institutions to follow suit.
However, the reserve narrative for Bitcoin has matured. MicroStrategy enjoys early establishment advantages, voice, and capital advantages, making its model difficult to replicate, resulting in later entrants struggling to achieve similar brand premiums and market recognition through BTC allocation. For most traditional institutions entering the market, allocating BTC resembles a diversification strategy rather than a growth strategy.
A new round of growth points and strategic windows is gradually shifting towards Ethereum, with more institutions starting ETH reserve strategies. However, in terms of reserve logic, Bitcoin and Ethereum have taken different routes.
It is well-known that in Bitcoin, newly minted BTC is directly distributed to miners through mining rewards. From the perspective of holding ratio, if institutions are not miners, they must constantly buy BTC to maintain their relative holding ratio from being diluted. In Ethereum, since the shift to a PoS consensus mechanism, as long as ETH is staked and participates in network validation, new ETH can be earned as rewards. For institutions, staking ETH can hedge against dilution risks caused by newly issued ETH. Data from ultrasound.money shows that as of July 18, 35.8 million ETH have been staked, with stakers enjoying an annualized yield of 2.8%, while non-stakers face an annualized burn rate of about 1.4%.
In other words, compared to buying Bitcoin and waiting for appreciation, reserve institutions for Ethereum can profit by participating in the network. Multiple listed companies have already taken the lead, with SharpLink Gaming, BitMine, Bit Digital, and GameSquare initiating Ethereum strategic reserve attempts with initial successes, among which BitMine and Bit Digital are transitioning their strategic reserves from Bitcoin to Ethereum. For them, ETH is not just a balance sheet asset but a productive asset for participating in the ecosystem, as well as a channel for becoming institutional 'miners'.
Ethereum's burning mechanism further strengthens this logic. When the Ethereum network is active (high transaction volume, high base fees), the amount of ETH burned increases. If the burned ETH exceeds the newly issued ETH, the network will enter a deflationary state. This not only enhances the scarcity of ETH but also increases the actual yields for stakers and validators, including MEV and transaction fee income, reinforcing the intrinsic value of ETH as an asset.
It is foreseeable that as more institutions enter and participate in the Ethereum staking market, they will no longer just be fund providers but will also play the role of big miners.
Currently, Ethereum's strategic reserve layout is in its early stages, and for companies looking to establish financial discourse, ETH remains a fair competition that has not yet been monopolized.
Ethereum staking will enter the institutional era, and the staking sector will welcome new opportunities.
As the Ethereum market becomes increasingly institutionalized, the staking market will also shift from being crypto-native to institution-driven, moving towards a new phase of compliance and scaling.
In addition to Ethereum micro-strategies actively participating in staking through free reserve assets, ETF issuers are also accelerating their layouts. In recent months, Ethereum spot ETF issuers such as BlackRock, Grayscale, Fidelity, and Bitwise have submitted applications to the SEC to add staking features.
Once these ETF institutions flood in with liquidity, it will further expand the market size of the Ethereum staking sector. According to DefiLlama data, as of July 18, the TVL of the liquidity staking sector on Ethereum reached $51.62 billion, nearing a historical high, up 142.5% from the April low.
According to dForce founder Mindao, Ethereum's equity-based enterprises have two special financing conveniences, in addition to using staking yields as cash flow to support interest-bearing financing, they can also use staking yields and on-chain DeFi operations as another dimension of valuation models, which may have greater premiums than pure NAV models. For example, GameSquare plans to collaborate with Dialectic to invest ETH reserves into lending, liquidity provision, and re-staking in DeFi basic operations; BTCS also utilizes Aave for DeFi lending. This suggests that staking and other DeFi sectors may welcome value reassessment.
At the same time, although institutional attitudes are gradually turning positive, they also demand high standards for the security, compliance, and liquidity management capabilities of protocols. Currently, multiple institutions have clear standards for selecting staking partners, such as 21Shares choosing Coinbase as its partner in the staking application documents, showcasing its requirements for compliance capabilities and technical reliability; SharpLink Gaming adopts a diversified cooperation approach, conducting staking business through Figment, Liquid Collective, and Coinbase. Such strategies also indicate that institutions place greater emphasis on risk diversification and service provider capabilities when deploying staking businesses, which may lead to further marginalization of small and medium-sized staking protocols.
Currently, the Ethereum liquidity staking market also shows a significant head effect. According to DefiLlama data, as of July 18, 2025, the total value locked (TVL) in the entire liquidity staking sector reached $51.62 billion, nearing a historical high. Among them, Lido dominates with a TVL exceeding $33.18 billion, holding over 60% market share, far ahead of other protocols. Binance, Rocket Pool, StakeWise, mETH Protocol, and Liquid Collective form the second tier, each having a TVL at the $1 billion level. The TVL of other projects often rests at tens of millions of dollars or even lower. In addition, Ethereum staking projects also include EigenLayer, Swell, Renzo, Puffer Finance, SSV Network, and Pendle, covering niche sectors such as re-staking, infrastructure, and LSTfi.
From various 'micro-strategies' accelerating entry to ETF issuers continuously advancing, the market sentiment for Ethereum has been ignited, but whether the reserve narrative can continue to support the ongoing development of the staking market still needs time and practical verification.
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"Ethereum reserve companies transforming into 'big miners', the staking sector may open new growth points" this article was first published on (Blockke).
