Exclusive: Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin has blunt response to Bitcoin treasury firms
Consensys chief executive officer and Ethereum co‑founder Joseph Lubin believes the next corporate balance sheet craze will revolve around Ether, not Bitcoin.
Speaking in an interview with TheStreet Roundtable, Lubin said he took inspiration from Michael Saylor's well‑publicized Bitcoin strategy: 'We figured that we could probably do an even better job for Ether because Ether is a productive and yielding asset.'
Lubin now chairs SharpLink Gaming (SBET), a Minneapolis‑based sports betting tech firm, that has pivoted into what he calls an Ether treasury company.
SharpLink first raised money through a private placement and 'made an initial purchase of 425 million Ether, which we staked immediately,' Lubin said, adding that the holding has since grown to roughly 280,000 Ether through an at‑the‑market equity program.
Every new dollar of equity, he explained, is converted straight into Ether and staked the same day.
'People buy SBET because they can sit on their hands from there on and be assured they will get the benefit of having more and more ether accumulated with respect to each one of their shares,' he said, describing the pitch as 'Ether concentration.'
Why Ether over Bitcoin
Unlike Bitcoin, Ether can be staked natively for yield and restaked into newer protocols such as EigenLayer.
Lubin said SharpLink works with Galaxy Digital and ParaFi Capital to craft strategies that are 'prudent with respect to risk but also do quite significant yielding,' aiming to outcompete future Ether exchange‑traded funds on payout.
Regulation, once the biggest obstacle, has flipped, according to Lubin. 'For a few years, the United States government was trying to kill Ethereum. Those are fortunately behind us,' he said.
With 'the new SEC and the new administration,' he expects enterprises and traditional finance to adopt tokens, decentralized finance and on‑chain assets en masse, driving transaction volume — and Ether burn — higher.
Ethereum's 'broadband moment,' as Lubin put it, will be reinforced by Layer‑2 networks such as Consensys‑backed Linea, whose forthcoming token Lubin teased as a 'game changer' that will loop economic value back to Ethereum's base layer.
How high could Ether go? Lubin declined to name a number but argued that as corporate treasuries, staking protocols and everyday applications compete for a finite supply, price is likely to find a new equilibrium at much higher levels.
Exclusive: Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin has blunt response to Bitcoin treasury firms first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 21, 2025
This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.
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