SharpLink Co-CEO Joseph Chalom sees Ethereum as a long-term reserve asset, not a speculative play

SharpLink Gaming’s newly appointed co-CEO is pushing back on warnings that corporate crypto treasuries could rattle the market this cycle. He frames the trend as a “white swan event” that guides large investors toward Ethereum, not a repeat of the FTX debacle.

Joseph Chalom told Decrypt in an interview that the publicly listed company has moved quickly to build a sizable Ethereum position, valued at more than $3.7 billion, and is using that stance to introduce ETH to mainstream businesses.

He said SharpLink is concentrating on how the network can power stablecoins, tokenization, and other tools that lower trading costs and risk.

“When they start realizing that they can reduce their capital requirements for trading, when they think they can reduce the risk involved in trading and transacting, and moving money, I think it’s going to be inevitable,” he said. “The white swan event is: We’re explaining to users what the potential is, and you’re starting to see that adoption.”

His remarks arrive amid criticism that the corporate treasury wave could sour if a handful of firms stockpile tokens and later unload.

Those concerns have grown alongside the strategy’s rise. As of the time noted, SharpLink holds 837,230 ETH, about 0.69% of circulating ETH, prompting debate over whether the company would ever sell.

“We are not sellers of Ethereum. We are accumulators of Ethereum,” Chalom said. “And if there are moments that you need liquidity, you can raise liquidity through debt instruments. You could do stock buybacks. So our intent is not to sell our Ethereum. It’s a reserve asset, not a trading asset.”

Crypto treasury holdings are not comparable to FTX collapse

On Myriad Markets, traders assign better than a 94% chance that Strategy won’t sell BTC this year. Saylor has also said that Strategy might eventually control as much as 7% of the Bitcoin supply.

Against that backdrop, Chalom dismissed the notion that balance sheets loaded with crypto are the “black swan” of this cycle, a term used for rare events with severe fallout, such as the FTX collapse.

“Absolutely not, unless you mean the black swan event to drive mind share and adoption,” he said. “The reason why I say it’s just not even in the same league as [FTX] is this is the most transparent approach you can have.”

Chalom, formerly BlackRock’s head of digital assets strategy, pointed to the obligations that come with being public.

SharpLink is under SEC oversight and must comply with Nasdaq requirements. He said the company releases weekly updates detailing its ETH balance, entry prices, and staking rewards. On the other hand, he argued, FTX failed because of a lack of transparency. The downfall, as reported by Cryptopolitan previously, led to a 25-year sentence for founder Sam Bankman-Fried

Pitching ETH is tougher than Bitcoin

Chalom said SharpLink’s outreach is designed to build Ethereum awareness among major institutions.

He expects that stablecoins, tokenized assets, and programmable money will push big names onto the network, and views the company’s disclosures and education as an on-ramp. “There’s a giant amount of education here,” he said. “And I think it doesn’t take convincing, it takes explaining.”

He also noted that pitching Ethereum to traditional investors is harder than pitching Bitcoin, which many frame as “digital gold.” That simple pitch, plus the surge into Bitcoin ETFs, helped BTC while ETH trailed. He said the gap could shrink as investors understand Ethereum’s “network effect growth story,” similar to the early internet.

“That just took a look a little bit longer to explain, and the adoption will take longer,” he added. “It just may have an impact that’s 10, 20x on what Bitcoin has had on the financial ecosystem.”

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