Ethereum digital asset treasury SharpLink is confident that institutional adoption is increasing despite bearish spot prices.
The last few months have been volatile for the price of ETH, the company stated on X on Wednesday. The asset has consolidated around bear market lows of $2,000 since the beginning of February and has yet to make any move to pre-crash levels.
Nevertheless, “the structural indicators of long-term institutional adoption of Ethereum continued to build,” stated SharpLink.
Sharplink Gaming is the world’s second-largest Ether DAT with 863,000 ETH worth around $1.89 billion. However, it has not made any further significant purchases since October 2025.
Staking, ETFs, and RWA Momentum
The firm highlighted several key metrics for its thesis, including continually increasing total value staked. Staking deposits have not slowed through bear markets, including a 50% price drawdown from the 2025 peak, it stated. There are currently 38.7 million ETH staked, worth around $89 billion, and equating to 32% of the total supply.
“Conviction in Ethereum’s yield layer is compounding regardless of price.”
Additionally, long-term holders did not flinch at the bear market drawdown, with every cohort holding ETH for more than six months holding its position through the recent volatility.
It also observed that short-term ETH holders were at breakeven with an MVRV sitting at 1.0, which indicates “recent buyers have no meaningful profit to sell, and loss-cutters have cleared out.”
“At the same time, exchange balances have fallen to 15 million ETH, a multi-year low. Less ETH available to sell. Less incentive to sell it. That is a supply constraint.”
Meanwhile, US spot ETH ETF flows turned positive in April after several months of net outflows as investors poured back into regulated ether products, even during a month that included a major DeFi exploit, it stated.
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The last few months have been volatile for the price of ETH. But in parallel, the structural indicators of long-term institutional adoption of Ethereum continued to build.
A look at the data. 🧵
— Sharplink (@Sharplink) May 12, 2026
SharpLink also noted Ethereum’s dominance in real-world asset tokenization, and this week’s news that BlackRock said it would begin tokenizing an existing multibillion-dollar money market fund on Ethereum. Also this week, JP Morgan announced the launch of a second tokenized money market fund on Ethereum.
“These are not separate trends. They are the same story told in different ways,” stated SharpLink.
“Asset managers tokenizing on-chain choose Ethereum. Stablecoins settle on Ethereum. Autonomous agents operate on Ethereum.”
Meanwhile, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy and SharpLink launched a $125 million Ethereum-powered DeFi yield fund this week.
Not Reflected in ETH Prices
Despite these solid fundamentals, spot Ether prices are still deflated. ETH fell back to its lowest level for almost two weeks, just above $2,250 in late trading on Tuesday, following the US CPI print and increase in inflation.
It managed to recover to just below $2,300 during Asian trading on Wednesday, but failed to break above it at the time of writing.
The asset has been tightly range-bound for the past month and remains almost 54% down from its all-time high in August 2025, so those institutional adoption fundamentals are not being reflected in spot markets yet.
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