Joseph Chalom, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ethereum (ETH) treasury firm SharpLink Inc. (SBET), stated in an interview on Saturday on the RollUp platform that recent criticism targeting the Ethereum network and its foundation is “noise” that loses sight of the bigger picture.
Chalom, who has 20 years of professional experience at BlackRock and previously participated in developing the iShares Bitcoin and Ethereum trust products, noted that Ethereum leads by a wide margin on core metrics for institutional adoption. Drawing an analogy to a sports scoreboard, he pointed out that Ethereum stands out for its prominent advantages in trust, liquidity, and security, and it supports over 50% of global stablecoin settlements, as well as the vast majority of tokenized real-world assets.
Why Is ETH Down?
Ethereum’s price was down 32% year-to-date. On Stocktwits, it was one of the top trending tickers. Retail sentiment around ETH dropped to ‘extremely bearish’ from ‘bearish’ zone, while chatter stayed at ‘normal’ levels over the past day.
He recognized the crux of the problem that plagues the asset, which is that while Ethereum has a lock on stablecoins and tokenization, the price of ETH has been a poor performer for about two years. Chalom rejected the notion that the ETH value accrual mechanism is “broken”, attributing the divergence to three macro forces: a broad risk-off environment in which crypto now trades highly correlated to AI-led equities, elevated oil prices tied to geopolitical conflict, and the Federal Reserve’s reluctance to cut rates amid an oil-driven inflation surge.
“You need the war to end and the price of energy to come down,” he said, citing WTI crude as one of the strongest current indicators of the price of Bitcoin and ETH. WTI reached a $̌117, a 52-week high. He was loath to give price predictions, but kept calling current levels “one of the best entry points” of the cycle.
SBET’s stock closed at $6.11 on Friday. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around SBET remained in the ‘neutral’ zone, while chatter moved to ‘normal’ from ‘high’ over the past day.
The Jeff Bezos Analogy
Chalom compared Ethereum’s approach to Amazon’s (AMZN) in its early days, when Jeff Bezos sacrificed profits to create commerce infrastructure instead of focusing on short-term profits. Ethereum, too, is building for an imminent “step function” in tokenization, he said, a market he believes is close to $32 billion and could grow five times, 10 times, or 100 times. He said Ethereum would grab 50% to 70% of that growth.
His thesis for ETH price appreciation is that transaction volume will eventually trigger the network’s fee-burning mechanism. “When that demand comes, you’re going to need ether, the token,” he said, characterizing Ethereum’s weak messaging as “a marketing problem, not a protocol problem.”
SharpLink’s Hot Take
SharpLink’s pitch for being competitive with ETFs and direct ownership is that it’s a permanent-capital vehicle that can stake almost all its ether and look for better risk-adjusted yields than daily-redemption funds, Chalom said. He pointed to a January liquid-restaking allocation of around $200 million in ether.fi and Consensys-backed Linea, done within a bank-regulated qualified custodian, and a planned on-chain yield fund with Galaxy (GLXY). SharpLink’s institutional ownership jumped from 6% to 47% between mid-2024 and March 31, with Fidelity its biggest holder, and anticipates that upcoming Russell index inclusion will broaden its investor base.
For a close, Chalom offered a “hot take” that the industry is “wildly underestimating” the near-term growth of tokenization and advised frustrated investors to focus on the long term. “The smartest institutions are doubling down right now,” he said. “They’re not experimenting, they’re allocating capital.”
