SharpLink Gaming (SBET) shares fell 20.38% on Friday, just a day after this betting marketing company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), proposing to increase the size of its stock offering from 1 billion USD to 6 billion USD. This move aims to expand the company's Ethereum (ETH) holdings — part of a bold transformation strategy that is attracting attention in the market.
Despite a decline in the weekend session, SBET shares have still risen about 16% over the past week, according to data from Google Finance — a week in which the company executed two major ETH purchases.
Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, SharpLink has made a distinct strategic shift from affiliate marketing to becoming a leading player in the Ethereum accumulation space. According to data from Arkham, the company is now the largest corporate holder of ETH in the world. Just earlier this week, SBET rose 16% after purchasing 48 million USD in ETH on Monday and 225 million USD on Tuesday.
Since the end of May — when SharpLink executed a 425 million USD private fundraising deal, mostly used to purchase ETH — SBET shares have skyrocketed more than 330%.
With the purchase of over 115 million USD in ETH on Thursday, the total ETH assets that the company holds have now reached approximately 1.3 billion USD, according to Arkham.
In the appendix of the filing submitted to the SEC on Thursday (supplementing the prospectus from May 30), SharpLink stated it will raise the total size of the stock offering to 6 billion USD. 'We are increasing the total value of common stock that can be sold under the distribution agreement to 6 billion USD, including 1 billion USD under the previous prospectus and an additional 5 billion USD under this appendix,' the company wrote in its latest filing.
Meanwhile, ETH is trading around 3,600 USD, down 1% in the past 24 hours. However, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has risen more than 41% in the last 14 days, thanks to a wave of buying from companies holding ETH as well as increasing expectations about the value of the Ethereum network.
In line with the trend, Bit Digital (BTBT) — a company previously focused on Bitcoin mining — has just announced that it has purchased an additional approximately 19,683 ETH. The total amount of Ethereum that this company is currently holding is now 120,306 ETH, equivalent to nearly 70 million USD. BTBT's stock fell more than 4% on Friday, but is still up about 60% since the beginning of the year.
On Thursday, BitMine Immersion — a company backed by billionaire Peter Thiel and has also shifted from mining to holding Ethereum — surpassed the 1 billion USD mark in ETH assets after purchasing an additional 500 million USD. BitMine expects to control up to 5% of the total ETH supply being held or staked on the market.
The strategy of these companies is seen as a continuation of the model from Strategy, which has become famous for its decision to transition from software development to accumulating Bitcoin since 2020, after a long period of underperformance. As of now, Strategy holds over 601,500 BTC, worth over 71 billion USD at current prices, according to bitcointreasuries.net.