Eight-month itch: Sharplink snaps up ETH dip while price hits 2026 floor 🪙

Ether treasury company Sharplink purchased 5,000 ETH worth about $7.85 million from crypto prime brokerage FalconX on Thursday, its first acquisition in eight months, according to on-chain data from Arkham. The transfer came as ETH slid to $1,537, its lowest price of 2026. ETH was down 5% over 24 hours in a broad crypto sell-off, falling below $1,560 as bitcoin slipped under $59,000. During the rout, Tether's USDT briefly overtook ether by market value, at about $186 billion to ether's $185 billion.

Following the initial 5,000 ETH purchase, Lookonchain reported that Sharplink added another 29,196 ETH for $46.7 million on June 27, with Ethereum digital asset treasuries amassing 39,196 ETH, worth $62.4 million, over the last three days. The treasury now holds 876,285 ETH and ETH equivalents, including 22,102 staked tokens, accumulated through active ETH purchases and staking rewards. Onchain analyst EmberCN put Sharplink's average purchase price at about $3,609 per coin, implying an unrealized loss of roughly $1.79 billion with ether trading near $1,555.

Sharplink's last purchase came on Oct. 26, 2025, when it acquired 19,270 ETH for $78.3 million, also now underwater. CEO Joseph Chalom told Cointelegraph in May that he saw three catalysts that could spur growth in the price of Ether: passage of the CLARITY Act in the US, a return to market risk appetite tied to easing geopolitical tension and cooling of the artificial intelligence investment thesis, and continued growth of real-world asset tokenization. The Senate is yet to vote on its version of the CLARITY Act, and the House Financial Services Committee said it would hold a hearing on the bill on July 17. Tokenized real-world assets have reached a distributed asset value of $31.55 billion, close to its highest level this year.

"I'm seeing genuine corporate accumulation conviction holding strong amid subdued price action," Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph. Sharplink shares closed at $4.81, up 5.48% from the prior trading day. The purchase comes days before Sharplink is expected to join the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 indexes on Monday, a move Chalom said would broaden the company's shareholder base and strengthen its access to capital markets.

Sharplink remains the second-largest public ether treasury behind Bitmine Immersion, which holds 5,672,956 ETH after acquiring another 52,203 ETH last week for $92 million. Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said, "We continue to maintain a steady pace of accumulation throughout 2026. We believe we are in the early stages of crypto spring." Sharplink was founded in 2019 as an affiliate marketing service provider to the sports betting and gambling industries and pivoted to become an Ethereum treasury company in June 2025, with Consensys co-founder and CEO Joe Lubin named as chairman; the company recently backed Ethlabs, a nonprofit founded by former Ethereum Foundation researchers, alongside Bitmine and Lubin.