For Joseph Chalom, Ethereum ETH$3,421.91 isn't just another blockchain. It’s the infrastructure he believes Wall Street will eventually build on.

Chalom, co-CEO of Sharplink and former head of digital assets at BlackRock, says the qualities financial institutions care most about — trust, security and liquidity — are all present in Ethereum. That’s why he’s betting his post-BlackRock career on it.

“Ethereum has the majority of stablecoins, tokenized assets and high-quality smart contract activity,” Chalom told CoinDesk in an interview. “If you're going to digitize finance, you need a chain institutions can trust — and it’s Ethereum.”

At BlackRock, Chalom spent 20 years helping scale the Aladdin platform, a cornerstone of the firm’s internal operations that became one of the largest portfolio and risk management systems in the finance industry. Later, he led BlackRock’s entry into the crypto space, backing Circle, launching the firm’s most profitable exchange-traded fund (ETF), IBIT, and investing in tokenization firm Securitize.

That experience shaped his conviction in Ethereum’s design. He describes the blockchain as a “multi-purpose” platform — capable of supporting not just financial transactions, but lending, trading, NFTs and complex applications — in contrast to bitcoin, which he calls “a great store of value.”

'Productive asset'

Ether’s native yield from staking also sets it apart.

Unlike bitcoin, which sits idle in portfolios, ether generates 3% annual yield through Ethereum’s proof-of-stake mechanism. “It’s a productive asset,” Chalom said. “And that productivity can be returned to shareholders.”

At Sharplink, which holds over $3 billion worth of ether, Chalom is trying to prove just that.

Nearly all of the company’s ether is staked. And through new partnerships with Consensys, Linea and EigenLayer, Sharplink is exploring “restaking” strategies to unlock additional yield — while keeping assets with regulated custodians.

He says this kind of capital, held on balance sheets with no short-term redemption pressure, lets institutions offer DeFi-level returns without DeFi-level risk. “If you’re willing to lock duration, you can be the ‘L’ in total value locked,” Chalom said. “That opens up access to safer and better returns.”

DAT future

Sharplink is one of several digital asset treasury companies accumulating ether, but Chalom believes most will struggle to scale. Without strong trading volumes, clean balance sheets, and internal teams managing staking and investments, he says many treasuries will underperform.

Chalom views Sharplink not as a break from his BlackRock career, but as a continuation of his mission: bridging traditional finance with the crypto ecosystem. “We spent decades building rails full of intermediaries,” he said. “Ethereum gives us a chance to rebuild those rails — faster, cheaper and more secure.”

He doesn’t think of Ethereum as speculative tech. He sees it as the foundation for the next wave of digitized finance. “Over time,” he said, “we won’t call it DeFi or TradFi. We’ll just call it finance. And Ethereum will be the infrastructure underneath.”