Prepare for Ethereum to Shock the Crypto Market! | Joseph Chalom

**Tony Edward** (0:05)
Hey, folks, we are recording at the Injective Policy Summit in DC, and joining me is Joseph Chalom, who is the CEO of SharpLink. Joseph, good to see you.

**Joseph Chalom** (0:14)
Great to be with you again.

**Tony Edward** (0:15)
We've done an in-person interview in the past, and there's lots happening around SharpLink, so excited to chat with you. Tell us about the latest with SharpLink. What's new?

**Joseph Chalom** (0:23)
So for your viewers, again, we're a digital asset treasury company.
We raised several billion dollars to buy Ether, and we make it really, really productive. I think the two most interesting things over the past month is, we were able to go back to the public markets and raise equity, and actually go back to buying ETH, actually at a very good price, buying back some stock. The second thing that is quite interesting is, we've been along with Joe Lubin from Consensus and Tom Lee from Bitmine, we've started supporting and investing into spinoffs in the Ethereum ecosystem, and it's going to be really, really positive for the new narrative and the new era of Ethereum.

**Tony Edward** (1:05)
Joseph, there's been a lot of negativity around ETH, some things around the foundation, but overall the ecosystem around Ethereum continues to grow. There's more institutional adoption and much more. Do you think it's just symptoms of the bear market that you have that sentiment?

**Joseph Chalom** (1:20)
I actually think for the last year and a half or so, there's been a divergence from reality and sentiment. And the reality is, let's start with the really positive. The reality is the Ethereum ecosystem has over 50% of all stablecoin volume, nearly 60% of tokenized real world assets. The vast majority of DeFi was built on Ethereum. And so if you look at the scoreboard, they're winning. The sentiment has been pretty negative, largely because of some, I would say, malaise in the industry. And the Ethereum Foundation, which has done an amazing job over the past decade or so, has taken the decision to subtract, to be smaller, and to allow more ecosystem participants to support the roadmap. And that communication led to a lot of, I would say, a lack of clarity and confidence in the ecosystem, even when it was winning. So, a number of us stood up as ecosystem stewards and large owners of ETH, and we're putting our money where our mouth is, and I'd love to share some of the things we've been doing as a collective industry.

**Tony Edward** (2:29)
Oh, absolutely. So, let's talk a bit about that. Let's double click into that. What are some of the initiatives?

**Joseph Chalom** (2:34)
So, let's start with the positive. Ethereum has the longest track record of any blockchain other than Bitcoin, never gone down, the most secure, the most trusted, with the most liquidity.
It also has a multi-year, very, very aggressive roadmap to continue to scale.
That said, their mantra and their approach is to go back to the basics. The Ethereum Foundation is going to focus on privacy, and they're going to focus on censorship resistance, and some of the core principles to make sure that Ethereum is credibly neutral for decades to come. But what that meant is some of the most critical talent and functions within the Ethereum Foundation were spun out.
And over the last three weeks or so, there have been three groups who have spun out of the Ethereum Foundation, who've gotten the support from Joe Lubin, myself, and Tom Lee from Bitmine, and they're actually really consequential for institutional adoption. And I'll tell you who they are. The first was ETH Labs, some of the strongest developers in the Ethereum ecosystem, building the scale that institutions require. The second was Ethereum Institutional. This is the front door, the go-to-market, the BD activity for Ethereum spinning out of the foundation with our support. And just earlier this week, the three of us funded ETH Labs, which is building the next generation of privacy and compliance on Ethereum, which is an absolute requirement for the largest institutions to transact but ensure their data is kept private. And while these sound like three distinct nodes in the ecosystem, these are the three most important things that are going to drive institutional adoption over the next year and years to come.

**Tony Edward** (4:22)
Yeah, Joseph, it's fascinating because I see a lot of institutions, they start with Ethereum when they're ready to tokenize and delve into DeFi and much more.
And then they eventually branch out to other chains, but it always starts with Ethereum. It's amazing.

**Joseph Chalom** (4:37)
It's because, as I said earlier, Ethereum has the characteristics that institutions need. I don't know a lot for certain in life, but I spent 20 years at BlackRock. And I know for sure, before you move financial rails that are 40, 50, 60 years old, you want it to move to something that's trusted, always on, secure, with the most liquidity.