The Ethereum staking market welcomes the era of institutions, and the staking track may open new rise points.

As early entrants have taken a dominant position, new joining institutions find it difficult to replicate their market recognition and capital returns. More and more companies are starting to turn their attention to Ethereum. Compared to mere asset appreciation, Ethereum opens its doors to institutions in another way, providing not only stable and sustainable on-chain returns but also allowing these institutional stakers to become "miners," deeply participating in ecological construction and promoting the entire staking sector towards compliance and scaling.

Bitcoin has reached a new historical high, and its driving force has shifted from retail investors to a joint push by institutions. The approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs has provided traditional financial institutions with a compliant entry channel. After some listed companies designated Bitcoin as a financial reserve asset, they achieved significant appreciation of their balance sheet assets, gaining high recognition from the capital market, enhancing the credibility of Bitcoin as an asset allocation, and attracting more institutions to follow suit.

However, the reserve story of Bitcoin has matured. Early entrants have advantages in terms of first-mover, influence, and capital, making their model difficult to replicate, and later entrants find it hard to achieve similar brand premiums and market recognition through Bitcoin allocation. For most traditional institutions entering the market, allocating Bitcoin seems more like an asset diversification strategy rather than a growth strategy.

A new round of rise points and strategic opportunities is gradually shifting towards Ethereum, with more institutions beginning to implement Ethereum reserve strategies. In terms of reserve logic, Bitcoin and Ethereum have taken different paths.

In the Bitcoin network, newly produced Bitcoins are directly issued to miners through mining rewards. From the perspective of holding ratio, if institutions are not miners, they must continuously buy Bitcoins to maintain their relative holding ratio from being diluted. In the Ethereum network, since the transition to the PoS consensus mechanism, as long as ETH is staked and participates in network validation, new ETH can be obtained as rewards. For institutions, staking ETH can hedge against the dilution risk brought by the new ETH. Data shows that as of July 18, 35.8 million ETH have been staked, with stakers enjoying an annualized yield of 2.8%, while non-stakers face an annualized destruction rate of about 1.4%.

Compared to buying Bitcoin and waiting for appreciation, Ethereum's reserve institutions can profit by participating in the network. Several listed institutions have taken the lead, such as SharpLink Gaming, BitMine, Bit Digital, and GameSquare, which have begun to implement Ethereum strategic reserve attempts with initial success. Among them, BitMine and Bit Digital have even transitioned from a Bitcoin reserve strategy to an Ethereum reserve strategy. For them, ETH is not only a book asset but also a productive asset for participating in the ecosystem, as well as a pathway to becoming institutional "miners".

The Ethereum burning mechanism further reinforces this logic. When the Ethereum network is active, the amount of ETH burned increases. If the amount of ETH burned exceeds the newly issued ETH, the network will enter a deflationary state. This not only enhances the scarcity of ETH but also boosts the actual earnings of stakers and validators, including MEV and transaction fee income, strengthening the intrinsic value of ETH.

It is foreseeable that as more institutions flock in and participate in the Ethereum staking market, they will no longer just be providers of funds in the market, but will also take on the role of major miners. Currently, Ethereum's strategic reserve layout is in its early stages, and for companies that want to build financial discourse power, ETH is still a fair competition that has not yet been monopolized.

As the Ethereum market becomes increasingly institutionalized, the staking market will also shift from being crypto-native to institution-driven, moving towards a new phase of compliance and scalability. In addition to Ethereum reserves actively participating in staking, ETF issuers are also accelerating their layout. In recent months, several Ethereum spot ETF issuers have submitted applications to regulatory agencies to add staking features.

Once these ETF institutions inject substantial liquidity, it will further expand the market size of Ethereum staking. Data shows that as of July 18, the TVL of liquid staking on Ethereum reached $51.62 billion, close to an all-time high, up 142.5% from the April low.

Industry insiders point out that Ethereum's token equity companies have two special financing conveniences. In addition to using staking yields as cash flow to support interest-bearing financing, they can also use staking yields and on-chain DeFi operations as another dimension of the valuation model, which may have a greater premium than a pure NAV model. For example, GameSquare is currently planning to collaborate with Dialectic to invest ETH reserves into DeFi fundamentals such as lending, liquidity provision, and re-staking; BTCS is also utilizing a certain lending platform for DeFi lending, etc. This indicates that staking and other DeFi tracks may usher in a value re-evaluation.

At the same time, although institutional attitudes are gradually becoming positive, they also impose high standards on the security, compliance, and liquidity management capabilities of protocols. Currently, several institutions have clear standards for selecting staking partners. For example, a certain ETF issuer has chosen a specific trading platform as a partner in its staking application documents, demonstrating its requirements for compliance and technical reliability; SharpLink Gaming, on the other hand, employs a diversified cooperation approach, conducting staking operations through multiple institutions. Such strategies also indicate that institutions are placing more emphasis on risk diversification and the capabilities of service providers when deploying staking operations, which may further marginalize the staking protocols of small and medium-sized nodes.

Currently, the Ethereum liquid staking market also shows a significant head effect. According to data, as of July 18, 2025, the total value locked (TVL) in the entire liquid staking track reached 51.62 billion USD, close to an all-time high. Among them, a certain protocol dominates, with a TVL exceeding 33.18 billion USD and a market share of over 60%, far ahead of other protocols. Certain trading platforms, Rocket Pool, StakeWise, mETH Protocol, and Liquid Collective form the second tier, each with a TVL in the billion USD range. The TVL of other projects mostly remains at tens of millions of USD or even lower. In addition, Ethereum staking projects also include EigenLayer, Swell, Renzo, Puffer Finance, SSV Network, and Pendle, covering sub-tracks such as restaking, infrastructure, and LSTfi.

From various reserve parties accelerating their entry to ETF issuers continuously pushing forward, the market sentiment for Ethereum has been ignited. However, whether the reserve narrative can continue to support the sustained development of the staking market still requires time and practical verification.