For many years, corporate treasury strategies were very predictable: cash, bonds, and money market instruments. But the world shifted in 2020 when MicroStrategy made waves by placing Bitcoin squarely on its balance sheet as an offensive strategy. Now, with Bitcoin now firmly established in many corporate reserves, a new paradigm is emerging: companies are embracing proof-of-stake assets, starting with Ethereum, to earn yield while staking. This marks a critical shift in how companies think about treasury management in the digital age.
MicroStrategy led the charge in August 2020 with an initial $250 million BTC purchase, framing Bitcoin as a strategic hedge against inflation and depreciation. By late 2024, MicroStrategy had amassed over 423,650 BTC, now valued at $42 billion, making it the largest corporate BTC holder. Corporate Bitcoin accumulation has spread rapidly: 61 public firms now hold more than 3.2% of total BTC supply with companies such as Tesla, GameStop, Riot Platforms, and Twenty One Capital all including Bitcoin in their treasuries. By mid 2025, private and public entities reportedly held more than 847,000 BTC.
As BTC led the digital treasury charge, Ethereum emerged as a compelling next step, offering staked yield plus utility via smart contracts.
These moves reflect a broader cell-level strategy: shifting from purely speculative assets to productive assets that deliver yield while supporting growing digital ecosystems.
Institutional custodial and infrastructure support has become the bedrock of credible crypto treasury strategies. Major players like Coinbase Custody, Anchorage Digital, Fireblocks, and BitGo now offer enterprise-grade custody and staking services tailored to institutional clients. For example, BitGo provides multisignature cold storage and staking support across numerous networks, managing approximately one‑fifth of on‑chain Bitcoin transactions by value. Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered crypto bank, and Fireblocks, recently approved by New York regulators, are now integrated into services like 21Shares’ spot BTC and ETH ETFs alongside Coinbase, further reinforcing industry-grade security and operational compliance. On top of custody, Validator-as-a-Service (VaaS) providers, including Chorus One, Figment, and Kiln, deliver staking infrastructure with service-level guarantees, compliance tooling, and risk mitigation capabilities to allow corporations to operate node infrastructure or delegate responsibly without needing internal DevOps teams, preserving security while capturing staking yields.
Regulatory clarity is also catching up. The IRS issued Revenue Ruling 2023‑14 on July 31, 2023, confirming that staking rewards are taxed as ordinary income once received by cash-method taxpayers under Section 61(a). Complementing this, the SEC has signaled openness to compliant staking frameworks as custodians partner with spot ETF issuers, reinforcing governance and audit controls. Looking ahead, the proposed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (CLARITY Act) would further strengthen this landscape by formally demarcating regulatory jurisdictions: assigning digital commodities such as ETH and SOL to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) while affirming the SEC’s oversight of securities. It would also clarify that mature, protocol-native tokens and DeFi protocols are not investment contracts and further supports institutional use of on‑chain strategies, but also promises to unlock structured layers like restaking, vaults, and LST integrations while preserving board-level governance, audit trails, and operational transparency.
Producing real returns while signaling innovation, staking ETH and SOL offers public companies an attractive alternative to low-yield corporate cash or stablecoin reserves. Profitable yields of 3–7% APY are now accessible through institutional staking platforms, easily outperforming many fixed-income rates. Holding programmable assets also facilitates strategic optionality, enabling treasurers to engage with DeFi use cases, tokenize balances, or even pilot vendor fee settlements with smart contracts.
Beyond financial results, corporate treasury adoption of productive crypto signals clear differentiation to investors. A leading example is SharpLink Gaming, which converted a significant portion of its capital into Ethereum and staked over 95% of it. The firm credits this strategic shift, and the appointment of Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin to its board, for signaling innovation and advancing its market positioning.
Looking Ahead
The evolution of corporate crypto treasuries is unfolding in clearly defined phases, each building upon the last in sophistication and capital efficiency. The first phase, Bitcoin pioneering, emphasized symbolic value and digital gold positioning. This was followed by the productive digital assets phase, where firms began to allocate into Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL), not just for exposure but also for the ability to earn staking rewards, thereby generating yield from idle capital. And now, we are entering the multi-layer yield phase, in which forward-looking treasuries are layering on liquid staking, restaking protocols, and decentralized finance (DeFi) integrations to unlock additional yield and liquidity while retaining principal exposure. As regulatory frameworks solidify and infrastructure scales, expect more corporate treasurers to move from storing value to building yield-generating digital treasury architectures.
