Public Companies Stake On-Chain Reserves for Yield
Public companies are shifting their balance sheet strategies to deploy active reserves on public blockchains, generating token-denominated income through proof-of-stake assets. This new approach allows companies to turn idle crypto reserves into a potential source of protocol-level rewards.
The return is variable and exposed to token-price risk, which affects the outcome of network reward rates, validator performance, fees, lock-up periods, custody arrangements, and token prices.
Five approaches are leading treasury companies use to generate yield by staking on-chain reserves. The first approach involves running proprietary validators instead of paying a third party to stake assets.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies provides an example, with 5,067,309 ETH staked on Ethereum as of August 30, 2026, generating a 2.63% seven-day yield on an annualized basis. DeFi Development Corp. has taken a similar approach on Solana.
The second approach involves holding liquid staking tokens, which can provide more flexibility than directly locking the underlying asset. SharpLink provides a recent example of using Lido to stake ETH and receive wstETH, while Anchorage Digital held the assets in custody.