Exclusive: Why a SharpLink Whale Is Betting Millions on SBET—And Ignoring Ethereum
A crypto whale just made a jaw-dropping move—loading up on SharpLink’s SBET while leaving Ethereum in the dust. Here’s why.
The SBET Power Play
While Ethereum maxis were busy arguing about gas fees, this high-roller quietly stacked millions in SBET tokens. No hype, no fluff—just a cold, calculated bet on SharpLink’s gaming ecosystem.
Ethereum’s Fading Allure?
Let’s face it: ETH’s ‘ultrasound money’ narrative isn’t paying rent right now. Meanwhile, SBET’s real-world utility in iGaming is pulling in serious volume—and attention from whales who prefer profits over memes.
The Bottom Line
In a market obsessed with shiny new L2s, this whale’s play is a brutal reminder: sometimes the smartest money bypasses ‘blue chips’ for overlooked gems. (And no, that’s not financial advice—just ask the guys who missed Bitcoin at $100.)
Why SharpLink?
SharpLink Gaming was previously a little-known online gambling marketer, but rebranded to become an Ethereum treasury company in May. In making this move, the firm raised $425 million to purchase ETH, and Consensys CEO and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin joined its board of directors. The company now holds 438,190 ETH, or $1.647 billion worth of the asset.
(Disclosure: Consensys is one of 22 investors in an editorially independent Decrypt.)
The SharpLink Whale believes that SBET is best positioned to manage how it acquires yield, and warns against other firms jumping on the treasury company trend.
“I'm pretty sure it's already turning into a grift,” he told Decrypt. “A lot of times in crypto, what happens is: There's something that has a big success, you have a lot of copycats, and people think they missed out on the main one—so they try to get the copycat, and they get fucked over.”
Lubin’s involvement is Core to the SharpLink Whale’s thesis on the company. He believes that Lubin is the second-best person—only behind Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin—to help the company safely custody the ETH while also outlining a sound strategy to produce yield.
Yield refers to the process of earning a return from an asset. In this case, rather than simply holding or staking Ethereum, a user may choose to provide liquidity for a protocol, for example, in exchange for a percentage yield on the ETH they are providing.
As such, SharpLink Whale believes most people should avoid crypto treasury copycats and only pay attention to SharpLink, as well as Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin-centric Strategy. That said, he also sees potential in BitMine Immersion Technologies because of Tom Lee’s involvement and his connection with Wall Street.
Outside of that, the whale mostly thinks it's best to ignore emerging treasury firms, as he’s not convinced they’re going to outperform the aforementioned companies at acquiring yield on the assets. He also has concerns about SAFE custody, laughing and suggesting that an inexperienced company could click a dodgy link and lose everything.
Who is SharpLink Whale?
SharpLink Whale told Decrypt that he is a European man in his early 30s, currently working as a full-time trader and stay-at-home dad. He started his career in traditional finance before pivoting to crypto approximately four years ago, working a “relatively boring” job at a DeFi company.
He said that he made his initial $1 million SBET buy from the proceeds two major bets on Coinbase and Nvidia stocks that brought a 9x boost to his net worth.
The SharpLink millionaire’s story mirrors that of the Dogecoin Millionaire, an American man who profited millions of dollars by purchasing DOGE. However, Glauber "ProTheDoge" Contessoto famously did not sell any Dogecoin at its peak, which soon fell so hard that he lost his Dogecoin Millionaire title—though he regained it more than a year later.
The pseudonymous SharpLink millionaire refuses to fall to the same fate, and has already sold parts of his position—despite his growing social media following centering on his SBET holdings.
At one point, SharpLink Whale told Decrypt, he sold his entire SBET portfolio at around $40 and bought back in once it dipped to $20. In total, the trader has realized more than $2.5 million in profit on SBET despite his current holdings being down $126,000 from when he bought back in—albeit still sizably up from the initial buy.
“You feel kind of inclined not to sell. When I sell, I could just not tell people, but I want to be straight up. But obviously, it panics a lot of people,” he told Decrypt. “People also need to learn that you always need to make your own decisions. If I'm long SharpLink and it goes down 20%, it hurts. But it was my decision, it's fine. But if I long it purely based on some anonymous Twitter account or even friends, and then it goes down, it feels different.”
it's really not THAT hard to see that Ethereum is cheap here
seems like Lubin is the only one with the right amount of understanding and conviction
in hindsight it will look genius
but in fact it's a no-brainer
the asset is ETH the ticker is $SBET pic.twitter.com/JGbRcvQvMz
— sharplinkwhale (@sharplinkwhale) July 11, 2025
Days before taking a call with Decrypt, the SharpLink millionaire started to get cold feet as he claimed he was looking to exit his position. He said that the swings in price were too much to stomach, claiming that his portfolio shifted more than $500,000 in one day.
Now, he’s looking to diversify his portfolio into more stable assets so he can get a better night's sleep—which he claims has been greatly disturbed since he first bought SBET. What stable assets, you may ask? Bitcoin, of course… one of the most notoriously volatile assets of all time, though the chaos has been calming lately.
