Joseph Chalom joins SharpLink Gaming as co-CEO, jumps ship from BlackRock

SharpLink Gaming welcomed Joseph Chalom as its co-CEO. Chalom brings experience from his stint as head of digital assets at BlackRock and is a known Ethereum maximalist, who has helped bridge crypto and traditional finance. 

Chalom was behind the creation of BlackRock’s most prominent products, combining crypto and TradFi. He spent 20 years with the company, helping usher in the latest round of crypto products. Chalom worked on the IBIT ETF, the Ethereum product ETHA, as well as the tokenized money market instrument BUIDL. 

After 20 years at BlackRock and helping to lead its digital asset strategy, I’m beginning a new chapter:

I’ve joined @SharpLinkGaming as Co-CEO.

Here’s why.

At BlackRock, I helped launch:

– IBIT — world’s largest Bitcoin ETP
– ETHA — world’s largest Ethereum ETP
– BUIDL —…

— Joseph Chalom (@joechalom) July 25, 2025

SharpLink Gaming to reshuffle leadership

Chalom stated that joining the SharpLink gaming team would further expand the Ethereum ecosystem by actively using the company’s treasury. 

“I’m joining SharpLink with a clear mission: to help build the most trusted Ethereum treasury and to bring Ethereum to the center of global finance,” wrote Chalom after updating his position at the new company. 

With Chalom assuming his new role, the current CEO and co-founder of SharpLink Gaming, Robert Phythian, will take the role of President and shift his responsibilities. 

After the shift in leadership, SharpLink Gaming aims to work in alignment with Ethereum to use the network as the leading financial hub, connecting on-chain and traditional liquidity.

“Few executives in the world have had the kind of impact Joseph has had in unlocking institutional adoption of digital assets, having pioneered BlackRock’s strategic entry into the space. His decision to join SharpLink is a resounding validation of our ETH treasury strategy and vision for Ethereum to drive profound, transformative change across the global digital economy,” stated Joseph Lubin, SharpLink Chairman, Co-Founder of Ethereum and Founder and CEO of Consensys.

Before joining SharpLink Gaming, Chalom held key leadership roles at BlackRock. During his crypto tenure, he completed partnerships with key platforms, including Nasdaq, Coinbase, Anchorage Digital Bank, BNY Mellon, and Circle. 

Additionally, SharpLink Gaming has demonstrated its alignment with the Ethereum Foundation and its growth values. The bond was demonstrated after the recent OTC deal for 10,000 ETH from the Foundation’s initial ICO reserves. 

SharpLink Gaming holds the second-biggest ETH treasury

SharpLink Gaming still holds the second-biggest ETH treasury of 360,809 ETH, on par with some of the biggest ICO projects. However, unlike ICOs, the treasury companies will not sell the ETH for operating expenses. Instead, SharpLink aims to use the token for staking and passive income. 

Currently, most of the ETH in the company’s treasury is staked, with liquidity issued in LSETH, a liquid staking token. The company holds only 52.56 ETH outright in its known public wallet. 

Despite having the second-biggest treasury, SharpLink Gaming is the biggest and most established corporation to deliberately grow its ETH reserves. The company aims to secure 1M ETH in its treasury, far surpassing even the Ethereum Foundation. 

At the same time, SBET shares are being represented on-chain. Injective (INJ) launched a native tokenized version of SBET shares. Currently, SBET is trading at $22, down from its recent local high of $37.36 achieved earlier in July.

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