Latest news with #Consensys
CNBC
30-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Ethereum Co-Founder Joe Lubin on Ethereum Treasurys as the cryptocurrency turns 10
Joe Lubin, Ethereum co-founder and SharpLink Gaming chairman and Consensys founder, joins 'Fast Money' to talk Ethereum, broader crypto adoption, and where the space goes from here.
Business Wire
30-07-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Ethereum Celebrates 10 Years With Over 1.2 million % Price Growth, Institutional Adoption Surge, and Nasdaq Bell Ringing
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ethereum, the world's second-largest blockchain and leading smart contract platform, celebrates its 10th anniversary today with a track record of growth, reliability and innovation few technologies can rival. Invented in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin and launched in 2015, the network has become one of the most significant technological innovations of the past 10 years. Ether (ETH), Ethereum's native cryptocurrency, was priced at about $0.31 per coin during its 2014 Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and now trades around $3,800, a ~1.2 million % increase. This extraordinary decade-long rise underscores Ethereum's evolution from a novel idea into a cornerstone of the digital economy. To celebrate the milestone, Joseph Lubin, Co-founder of Ethereum, Founder/CEO of Consensys and Chairman of SharpLink, and Dankrad Feist, Protocol Architecture Co-Lead at the Ethereum Foundation, rang the Nasdaq closing bell today in New York City, joined by key figures from both the Ethereum ecosystem and traditional finance institutions. The event symbolized the increasing convergence of traditional and decentralized finance (DeFi). 'Ethereum's future is now. The protocol is poised to undergird not just a new global financial system, but the next wave of innovation across networks of decentralized social graphs, decentralized physical infrastructure, data marketplaces and autonomous AI agents. As regulatory clarity increases, particularly in the U.S., the excitement in and around the ecosystem is palpable. Ethereum is emerging as the foundation for digital trust in an era defined by both decentralization and intelligence. At Consensys, we've never felt more energized or optimistic about what's ahead. This 10-year anniversary marks a celebration of everything we've built: but it's also a launchpad for what comes next,' said Joseph Lubin. As Ethereum celebrates its first decade, its position as the programmable, secure, and credibly neutral infrastructure for digital money has never been stronger. What began as an open experiment in decentralized computing is now a borderless, transparent financial infrastructure supporting a wide range of real-world use cases. With the world's financial system undergoing rapid transformation, Ethereum is delivering its 'protocol moment'. From The Merge to Dencun: Ethereum's Path to Scalable, Sustainable Infrastructure Ethereum's development has been marked by a series of pioneering upgrades, including The Merge (Ethereum's transition from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake), EIP-1559, and Dencun, which introduced modular data availability and radically reduced L2 transaction costs, all while maintaining zero downtime since the protocol's genesis. These milestones made Ethereum not only greener but also more scalable and economically sustainable. Since the launch of Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake Beacon Chain in December 2020, the number of active validators has grown from just over 21,000 to more than 1.1 million in 2025. This significant increase reflects the network's deepening decentralization and its ability to scale securely as institutional and community participation expands. With over $25 trillion in transaction volume in 2024 alone, Ethereum has cemented itself as the global settlement layer for programmable money, underpinning DeFi, stablecoins, DAOs, and new emerging categories like AI agents and onchain identity. Institutional Confidence at All-Time High Since The Merge in September 2022, the total ETH staked on the Beacon Chain has grown from ~13 million ETH to over 33 million ETH, representing a more than 150% increase and over $120 billion USD in locked capital. Institutional players now hold over 60% of this staked ETH, with exchanges, custodians, and funds anchoring their strategies in Ethereum's infrastructure. This shift reflects what the 2025 Trustware report from Consensys terms 'the industrialization of trust', a broad move from experimental DeFi to scalable, institutional-grade blockchain systems. Ethereum is a new kind of software: Trustware. And Trustware tools, like MetaMask's web3 self-custodial wallet and Linea's Ethereum-aligned L2, are helping scale usage while maintaining user sovereignty. Ringing the Nasdaq Bell: At the Crossroads of Traditional and Decentralized Finance Today's bell ringing follows the approval and launch of ETH ETFs in the United States and Europe last year, another sign of mainstream financial integration. Ethereum's evolution into a trusted global financial infrastructure is also underscored by the launch of Ethereum-native treasury strategies through organizations like SharpLink. The next 10 years will be defined by further convergence between public blockchain innovation and institutional-grade infrastructure. And if the last decade is any indication, Ethereum will remain at the heart of that evolution. About Consensys Consensys is the leading Ethereum software company, building the infrastructure, tools, and protocols that power the world's largest decentralized ecosystem. Founded in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, Consensys has played a foundational role in Ethereum's growth, from pioneering products like MetaMask and Infura to shaping protocol development and staking infrastructure. Today, Consensys continues to lead Ethereum's evolution through strategic R&D, and direct contributions to network upgrades like the Merge and Pectra. With a global product suite, and deep roots across the ecosystem, Consensys is uniquely positioned to accelerate Ethereum's role as the trust layer for a new global economy, one that is decentralized, programmable, and open to all. To learn more, visit
CNBC
28-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
PayPal allows U.S. merchants to accept payment in more than 100 cryptocurrencies: CNBC Crypto World
On today's episode of CNBC Crypto World, PayPal announced it's launching a service that lets U.S. merchants accept over 100 cryptocurrencies for payments. Plus, Joe Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum, discusses the latest on his crypto treasury company SharpLink Gaming and whether we could see the blockchain firm he founded, Consensys, hit U.S. public markets.
Crypto Insight
28-07-2025
- Business
- Crypto Insight
SharpLink buys $295M in ETH — more than all the Ether issued last month
SharpLink Gaming, the second-largest corporate holder of Ether, has acquired another 77,210 Ether, worth $295 million, as the firm shows no signs of slowing down its crypto treasury play. The single purchase is more than the network's net issuance of Ether in the past 30 days, which stood at 72,795 ETH, according to Ultra Sound Money. The company staked most of the acquired ETH to earn staking rewards. After the recent acquisition of ETH, the company's total ETH holdings exceed 438,000 ETH, which is worth more than $1.69 billion, according to Lookonchain. SharpLink is the second company to hold more than $1.5 billion worth of ETH in its treasury, with Bitmine Immersion Tech taking the top spot as its ETH holdings exceed $2 billion. 'Banks close on weekends. Ethereum runs 24/7,' the firm said in a X post on Sunday. On July 18, Cointelegraph reported that SharpLink has filed an amended prospectus with the regulators in a bid to increase its stock sale from $1 billion to $6 billion. The majority of the proceeds from the sale will be used to buy ETH. Talent acquisition spree On Friday, SharpLink announced that it had hired Joseph Chalom as its new co-CEO. Chalom had worked for 20 years at BlackRock, the largest asset management firm in the world. At SharpLink, he will be responsible for shaping and executing the company's global strategy. In May, the company nominated Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin as its chairman of its board of directors. Ether supply shock ETH purchases by corporations and institutional investors via ETFs can create a supply shortage for ETH, which can theoretically push the price. On Thursday, BitMine Immersion Technologies stated that it held more than 566,000 ETH, worth more than $2 billion at time of publication. Additionally, the firm announced its ambitious plan of holding at least 5% of ETH's total supply, which amounts to 6 million Ether worth more than $23 billion at the time of writing. Currently, 6.73% of ETH's total supply, 8.12 million Ether worth more than $31 billion, is collectively being held by corporations and ETFs combined, according to Strategic ETH Reserve. Source:
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SharpLink closes in on Ethereum Foundation's $725m Ether stash
SharpLink Gaming, a publicly listed sports and online casino marketing company, could soon become the largest holder of Ethereum. SharpLink is buying 'tens of millions of dollars' of Ethereum every day, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin said Tuesday. Lubin leads Consensys, an Ethereum software company, and is the chair of SharpLink's board of directors. At its current pace, SharpLink will soon surpass the Ethereum Foundation as the largest corporate holder of the blockchain's native cryptocurrency. The Foundation sits on a $725 million trove of the cryptocurrency. As of Thursday, SharpLink had $612 million. 'We are accumulating more and more consistently — we're able to acquire tens of millions of dollars in Ether a day,' Lubin told CNBC. A new playbook It's a sudden, massive bet on crypto. And it's a bet that has become popular with small, publicly-traded companies. SharpLink CEO Rob Phythian announced the company's 'expansion beyond our core business' in May. The company sold about $425 million in stock to a group of investors that included Consensys and said it would use the money to purchase Ethereum, which would 'serve as the Company's primary treasury reserve asset.' It's a move that mirrors that of Strategy, a software company that has amassed $67 billion worth of Bitcoin since 2020. Lubin told DL News in June that Ethereum's underperformance relative to Bitcoin and Solana inspired him to copy Strategy's playbook. In the four days following SharpLink's announcement, its shares soared 2,700%, reaching a high of $124 on May 30. But its price dropped in the following days. It crashed another 75% after submitting an SEC filing that allowed insiders to sell shares. Lubin said on X in June that the filing was standard procedure and that neither he nor Consensys has sold any shares. On Tuesday CNBC asked Lubin about the state of Ethereum and its underperformance relative to Bitcoin. Lubin said he believes all of the activity on the internet will eventually migrate to blockchains and that Ethereum is best positioned to benefit. The SharpLink strategy? SharpLink raises money to purchase Ethereum by selling shares. The company said on Tuesday it raised $64 million between June 28 and July 4, of which $37 million will be used to acquire additional Ethereum. SharpLink also stated the entirety of its Ethereum holdings have been deployed into staking and restaking protocols to earn yield. The company has earned 322 Ethereum from staking and restaking since June 2. The Strategic ETH Reserve website tracks all entities holding more than 100 Ethereum. As of Thursday, 46 entities hold more than 1.3 million Ethereum worth over $3.6 billion. The top five holders in descending order are the Ethereum Foundation, SharpLink, PulseChain, Coinbase, and the Golem Foundation. After falling below $10 on June 13, SharpLink stock has since recovered to $18. Meanwhile, Ethereum hit $2,967 on Thursday, its highest value since early February. Zachary Rampone is a DeFi correspondent at DL News. Have a tip? Contact him at zrampone@
