Sharplink CEO：Now liquidating ETH is like selling Amazon during the internet bubble

Original text｜Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink

Translation｜Odaily Planet Daily, Qin Xiaofeng (@QinXiaofeng 888 )

Editor’s Note: This week, former ETH permabull and Bankless co-founder David Hoffman published an article explaining why he liquidated his ETH holdings, which resonated strongly with the Ethereum community. The article garnered a staggering 1.8 million views on platform X. Amidst this public sentiment, Sharplink (Nasdaq: SBET), which holds the second-largest corporate ETH treasury (Odaily Note: Sharplink’s treasury holds approximately 868,000 ETH, worth nearly $1.8 billion, second only to BitMine), felt compelled to respond.

On May 30, Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom published an article titled “Ethereum Going Back on Offense”, aiming to boost confidence among ETH holders. He stated that the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is fulfilling its core responsibilities by focusing on the core protocol, security, and decentralization – precisely the foundation of institutional trust. He likened today’s ETH to Amazon during the dot-com bubble, arguing that its value is undervalued (Odaily Note: Standard Chartered Bank has also made a similar analogy, emphasizing the severe divergence between ETH’s fundamentals and its price). Joseph Chalom believes that the current market fear presents a prime opportunity for positioning, and that ecosystem participants must actively advocate to drive a super-cycle of institutional adoption.

The following is the full text of Joseph Chalom’s article, translated by Odaily Planet Daily. Enjoy—

————————————————

The current controversies surrounding the Ethereum Foundation (EF) and the noise generated by ETH price fluctuations are causing people to overlook the bigger picture. While I understand these discussions, 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 spent two decades as a senior executive at BlackRock, overseeing fintech operations and digital asset strategy. These experiences have given me a deep understanding of what institutions truly require before deploying capital into new infrastructure.

I want to set aside the noise and offer a different perspective on where Ethereum stands today and where it is headed.

The Ethereum Foundation is Fulfilling its Core Responsibilities

Taking a step back, what has been delivered over the past decade? In the attributes institutions value most – trust, security, and liquidity – Ethereum is far ahead. It is winning, and by a significant margin.

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

This is no accident. It is the result of years of rigorous protocol development by the Ethereum Foundation. Ethereum is the only blockchain that has successfully delivered major upgrades at the base layer for a decade: The Merge, EIP-1559, Dencun, Pectra, Fusaka. The upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade will bring a leap in scalability, and the EF is leading the industry toward a quantum-resistant era. This is the most ambitious technical roadmap in the entire industry.

Decentralization is a Feature, Not a Flaw

Some of the harshest criticisms of the EF view decentralization as a weakness. This perspective completely inverts institutional logic. The Ethereum ecosystem has the most developers of any blockchain – and the vast majority of them are not affiliated with the EF.

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

Ethereum’s credible neutrality and decentralization are precisely why it is becoming the future financial settlement layer. These are not flaws.

Between a foundation focused on security, privacy, quantum resistance, and core protocols, and one optimized for short-term marketing, I will choose the former every time.

ETH’s Value Mirrors Amazon

History is filled with examples where foundational innovations were dismissed by critics chasing flashier newcomers, only to prove the pessimists wrong. Amazon is the most typical case.

Early on, the market consensus on Amazon was that it was a persistently loss-making online bookseller propped up by the internet bubble. Short-sellers focused only on its income statement, ignoring Jeff Bezos’s long-term vision – he was building a new market structure for e-commerce. Its total addressable market (TAM) was never book sales, but the entire retail economy, and later expanded into cloud computing and media. Those analysts who fixated on Amazon’s short-term stock price missed the bigger opportunity.

Today, Ethereum and ETH are in the same position. Its TAM is not crypto trading, but the entire global financial system. The intrinsic value of ETH is intrinsically linked to the network’s expansion. And the Ethereum network is at an inflection point poised for exponential growth in transaction volume, encompassing stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, DeFi, and the emerging wave of agentic finance. To secure such immense transaction volume, Ethereum will become a highly demanded incentive layer and ultimate trust infrastructure, and its monetary premium will correspondingly increase.

There is no Ethereum without ETH. The asset and the network are inseparable.

When Others Capitulate, It’s Time to Profit

In almost every market cycle, the moment when retail capitulates and sentiment is at its absolute lowest is precisely the prime opportunity for disciplined capital to enter and position itself. Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway by buying quality assets during the most pessimistic times – 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 market fear. The smartest investors buy quality assets when the market is most afraid. They invest counter-cyclically, not pro-cyclically.

During the crypto winter following the FTX collapse, most institutions shied away from Bitcoin and ETH exposure or shelved product launches. At BlackRock, we did the opposite. We doubled down, invested in infrastructure, built ecosystem partnerships, and launched products that bridged traditional finance and the crypto world.

We can all learn a great deal from Buffett and BlackRock.

Ethereum Needs New Voices

The EF is fulfilling its core responsibilities. Going forward, it will focus even 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-haven technology,’ prioritizing fundamental, long-term protocol security, user privacy, and resistance to censorship/control, rather than pursuing aggressive expansion and raw speed.)

For most people, it is clear that the current issue lies in go-to-market leadership; simultaneously, institutions are generally eager to embrace Ethereum. I strongly believe that ecosystem stakeholders and participants need to play a larger role in Ethereum’s narrative and institutional adoption.

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

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

That said, we can and will do more – actively advocating for Ethereum and proactively supporting the upcoming institutional adoption super-cycle.

The future of Ethereum is happening right now.

Recommended Reading:

“Bankless Co-founder’s Confession on Liquidating ETH: Ethereum Did the Right Thing, but ‘ETH is Money’ Has No Future”

“Bankless Founder Liquidates ETH, Collective Faith in Ethereum Shattered”