SharpLink buys 10,000 ETH from Ethereum Foundation as Ether reclaims $3K

The Ethereum Foundation sold 10,000 Ether through an over-the-counter deal just before the cryptocurrency briefly regained the $3,000 mark.

In a Friday X post, the Ethereum Foundation said it had finalized the terms of a 10,000 Ether (ETH) sale at an average price $2,572.37 via an over-the-counter transaction. At the time of writing, Ether traded nearly 16% higher, hovering just below $3,000.

“Our OTC counterparty was Sharplink Gaming,” the foundation said.

In a separate Friday announcement, SharpLink Gaming said it paid over $25 million for the ETH. The transaction was closed on Thursday. Nansen data indicated that ETH was trading in a range from $2,759 to $2,981, at least 6.7% higher than the agreed price of the sale.

SharpLink’s Ether strategy expands

The announcements follow betting platform SharpLink Gaming announcing an Ethereum-based corporate treasury strategy and nominating Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin as chairman of its board of directors in late May.

The company at the time entered into a securities purchase agreement for a private investment in public equity worth $425 million with participation from Ethereum infrastructure firm Consensys.

Lubin said on Wednesday that ETH treasuries are crucial for the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. He claimed that a large amount of Ether is in circulation, but there is insufficient activity to utilize it.

Lubin said that this is why he decided to get involved with SharpLink Gaming. “It’s going to be critical to enable the supply-demand dynamics of Ether to right-size as we build more and more applications,” he said.

Ethereum trades higher

The announcement came as Bitcoin reached new highs above $112,000, and Ether followed in lockstep to trade briefly above $3,000 on Friday. According to Nansen data, Ether reached a high of $3,028 earlier and traded just below $3,000 at publication.

The price flew higher after Bitcoin and Ether investors piled into crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), marking their second-largest daily inflows since their inception. Ether spot ETFs witnessed a total net inflow of $383.1 million on Thursday alone.

The rally also follows Sophia Gold, a developer in the Ethereum Foundation’s protocol support team, describing how traditional block execution is expected to be replaced with zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs). The transition is expected to take place within a year, with the network switching to ZK-proof-based operations entirely after a gradual transition.