Almost every market cycle, the moments when retail investors surrender and sentiment is at its lowest, are precisely the good opportunities for capital to enter and lay out plans.

Written by: Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink

Translated by: Qin Xiaofeng, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor's note: This week, former ETH bull and Bankless co-founder David Hoffman published an article explaining why he liquidated his ETH holdings, resonating strongly with the Ethereum community, with the article reaching an astonishing 1.8 million views on the X platform. As public opinion surged, Sharplink (Nasdaq: SBET), the second-largest listed ETH treasury company, could not sit idle (Odaily Note: Sharplink’s treasury has approximately 868,000 ETH, valued at nearly 1.8 billion dollars, second only to BitMine).

On May 30, Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom published an article titled “Ethereum Going Back on Offense,” attempting to boost the confidence of ETH holders. He noted that the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is fulfilling its core responsibilities, focusing on the core protocol, security, and decentralization, which is the foundation of institutional trust; today’s ETH is like Amazon was when the internet bubble burst, undervalued (Odaily Note: Standard Chartered has also made similar comparisons, emphasizing the serious divergence between ETH's fundamentals and its price). Joseph Chalom believes that when market fear is high, it is precisely the right time to lay out plans; all parties in the ecosystem need to speak out actively and promote institutional adoption in a super cycle.

Below is the full text of Joseph Chalom’s article, translated by Odaily Planet Daily, Enjoy~

The various controversies surrounding the Ethereum Foundation (EF) and the uproar caused by ETH price fluctuations have led many to overlook the broader picture. I certainly understand these discussions, but they do not determine who will lead the financial infrastructure of the next decade.

This is the perspective of a stakeholder. Before leading Sharplink, I served as a senior executive at BlackRock for twenty years, responsible for fintech operations and digital asset strategy. These experiences have given me a deep understanding of what institutions require before deploying capital into new infrastructures.

I want to set aside this noise and provide a different perspective on Ethereum's current situation and future direction.

The Ethereum Foundation is Fulfilling Its Core Responsibilities

Taking a step back, what have been the outcomes delivered over the past decade? In the attributes most valued by institutions—trust, security, and liquidity—Ethereum is leading far ahead. It is winning, and the advantages are clear.

Look at the data: Ethereum handles value settlement for the majority of stablecoins globally; it has far more tokenized real-world asset projects than any other blockchain; and it is the default venue for high-value DeFi transactions. On these dimensions, other competitors can only look on.

This is not coincidental; it is the result of the EF’s rigorous protocol development over the years. Ethereum is the only blockchain that has consistently launched significant upgrades at the base layer for ten years: The Merge, EIP-1559, Dencun, Pectra, Fusaka. The upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade will bring a leap in scalability, and the EF is leading the industry into the post-quantum era. This is the most ambitious technological roadmap in the industry.

Decentralization is a Feature, Not a Flaw

Some of the harshest criticisms of the EF view decentralization as a weakness. This perspective completely reverses the logic of institutions. The Ethereum ecosystem has the most developers of any blockchain—most of whom do not belong to the EF.

No foundation should have complete control over a blockchain. Institutions will not lock themselves into a proprietary system just to migrate from one proprietary system to another. They need to be assured that the underlying attributes they rely on will not be arbitrarily changed by centralized owners. In fact, no blockchain should depend on a single entity.

The trusted neutrality and decentralization of Ethereum are precisely why it is becoming the settlement layer for future finance. These are not flaws.

Every time a foundation focused on security, privacy, quantum resistance, and core protocol is pitted against one optimized for short-term marketing, I choose the former.

ETH's Value Comparable to Amazon

History is filled with examples of foundational innovations being ignored by critics, who then turn to embrace trendier newcomers, only for it to be proven that the pessimists were wrong. Amazon is the most typical example.

In the early days, the market consensus on Amazon was that it was just a perpetually loss-making online bookseller propped up by the internet bubble. Shorts focused solely on its earnings statement while overlooking Bezos's long-term vision—he was building a new ecommerce market structure. Its target market (TAM) was never just book sales, but rather the entire retail economy, later expanding into cloud computing and media. Those analysts who only focused on Amazon's short-term stock price missed the bigger opportunity.

Today, Ethereum and ETH find themselves in the same position. Its TAM is not crypto trading, but the entire global financial system. The intrinsic value of ETH is closely tied to the network's expansion. And the Ethereum network is on the brink of achieving exponential growth in transaction volume, encompassing stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, DeFi, and the emerging wave of agentic finance. To support such a massive transaction volume, Ethereum will become a demand-driven incentive layer and the ultimate trust infrastructure, and its monetary premium will rise accordingly.

There is no Ethereum without ETH. Assets and networks are inseparable.

When Others Surrender, It’s the Time to Make Money

Almost every market cycle, the moments when retail investors surrender and sentiment is at its lowest are precisely the good opportunities for disciplined capital to enter and lay plans. Buffett built Berkshire by buying quality assets at moments of the most pessimistic sentiment—from GEICO in the 1970s to Bank of America and Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis.

For most of the past year, the Fear and Greed Index has reflected extreme fear in the market. The smartest investors buy quality assets when the market is most fearful. They invest counter-cyclically rather than pro-cyclically.

Following the collapse of FTX and in the crypto winter, most institutions shied away from exposure to Bitcoin and ETH or postponed product launches. But when I was at BlackRock, we did the opposite. We doubled down, invested in infrastructure, built ecosystem partnerships, and launched products that connected traditional finance and the crypto world.

We can all learn a lot from Buffett and BlackRock.

Ethereum Needs New Voices

The EF is fulfilling its core responsibilities. In the future, it will focus more on CROPS. (Odaily Note: CROPS is an internal framework that prioritizes censorship resistance, openness, privacy, and security. This shift means the Ethereum Foundation will focus on making Ethereum a "safe harbor technology," prioritizing fundamental, long-term protocol security, user privacy, and resilience against censorship/control, rather than pursuing aggressive scaling and raw speed).

For most, it is clear that the current issue lies in the leadership of market promotion; meanwhile, institutions generally wish to embrace Ethereum. I strongly believe that stakeholders and participants in the ecosystem need to play a greater role in the narrative of Ethereum and institutional adoption.

Since last summer, digital asset treasury companies and Ethereum's core guardians have played an important role in this regard. This includes Sharplink, Tom Lee of BitMine, Joe Lubin of Consensys, Etherealize, Nethermind, Aave, Morpho, EEA, and other ecosystem stakeholders. We have also worked closely with a small internal team within the EF focused on institutional education and adoption.

Sharplink is actively investing in this ecosystem. We are the first company to stake billions of dollars in ETH capital and have deployed hundreds of millions to high-quality DeFi protocols. We recently announced a joint launch with Galaxy Digital of a $125 million DeFi yield fund to provide capital to existing and emerging protocols.

That being said, we can and will do more, actively voicing support for Ethereum and proactively supporting the upcoming institutional adoption super cycle.

The future of Ethereum is happening right now.