Sharplink exec shocked by level of BTC and ETH ETF hodling: Joseph Chalom

More than a year on from their debut, the success of BlackRock’s Bitcoin and Ether ETFs blindsided its former digital assets strategy chief, Joseph Chalom.

But what could possibly surprise a 20-year veteran of a company that’s seen it all — a financial giant that’s been around for nearly four decades, weathered every market cycle, and manages more than $10 trillion in assets?

It wasn’t the billions pouring in or the wall-to-wall news headlines; it was how investors behaved once they were in.

“What’s exceeded expectations is that most of that capital is buy and hold. These are not speculators. These are not short-term traders,” says Chalom, now the co-CEO of Nasdaq-listed Sharplink Gaming, the world’s second-largest Ethereum treasury company.

Chalom tells Magazine it was a real “mission accomplished” moment.

The numbers speak for themselves. Since launching its Bitcoin and Ether spot ETFs in 2024, BlackRock has seen roughly $80 billion in combined net inflows.

Chalom says the “thesis is not a crypto thesis” anymore

“These are people who believe in the thesis that you should have some Bitcoin and some ETH in a diversified investment portfolio,” the 54-year-old New York-based executive says.

Chalom emphasizes “the thesis is not a crypto thesis,” referring to the world beyond Crypto Twitter.

“It means that some of the largest pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, and wealth managers believe that this should be an allocation in people’s portfolios,” he says.

After 20 years at BlackRock, Chalom could have easily stayed put, basking in the glory of the crypto ETF success, but he wanted to hit the brakes.

Chalom left BlackRock in June to retire, not as part of a plan to move elsewhere. However, that retirement didn’t last long.

“I got a phone call about a month into my glorious, and it was glorious, retirement,” Chalom told Bankless in September, explaining that he was fascinated that Ethereum was “the next mega trend.”

“My intent was to take somewhere between six and 12 months off, spend time with family, sit on a beach, and really decompress and enjoy myself,” Chalom said.

But he admits that he is “a really mission-oriented person.”

A month later, in July, he became co-CEO of Sharplink Gaming, the world’s second-largest Ether treasury firm, which holds around 838,000 ETH tokens, approximately 0.69% of the total supply, accordingto StrategicETHReserve data.

Chalom’s mission for Sharplink Gaming

Chalom, who is super strategic and detail-obsessed, explains his “three-part mission” at Sharplink Gaming.

“One is to raise capital and accumulate as much ETH as possible, simple,” he says.

The second part is to improve protocol standards across Ethereum and earn investors stronger returns by staking than they could get alone. He adds that Sharplink — chaired by Joe Lubin — will use its power “in a benevolent way.” 

“If you’re the second-largest corporate holder of ETH, you can kingmake protocols, raise their standards, and get promotional returns for your investors that you can’t if you’re a mom and pop or an ETF holder.” 

“Third is when you start engaging with the DeFi ecosystem, you can do really positive things to invigorate the Ethereum ecosystem, raise their standards, and frankly, tell the long term story of how Ethereum is going to be the global settlement layer for finance,” he says, emphasizing that he wants to make sure there is a differentiation and no confusion between Ethereum and the rest of the blockchains out there.

Investors clearly like what they’re seeing with the Ether accumulation plan. Sharplink’s stock is up almost 90% since the start of the year, according to Google Finance.

Who is Joseph Chalom?

It’s not surprising that Chalom isn’t one to rest on his laurels; his CV reads like the blueprint for how to climb the corporate ladder to the top.

After graduating from The Johns Hopkins University in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs, Chalom pursued his passion for law at Columbia Law School, where he earned a Juris Doctor degree in 1997.

He spent the following seven years working his way up at various law firms before joining BlackRock in 2005, initially as the chief operating officer of BlackRock Solutions, where he oversaw the expansion of its risk management platform, Aladdin.

Eventually, he moved into a managing director role overseeing strategic ecosystem partnerships, before heading up the digital assets strategy, where he was instrumental in launching both the iShares Bitcoin ETF and the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF in 2024.

And now he’s trying to buy as much Ethereum as possible for Sharplink while talking it up as the future of finance on podcasts and at conferences.

Chalom’s outlook on crypto for the future

Magazine asked Chalom what his traditional finance peers make of crypto now, given the surge in corporate treasuries, ETF inflows, and institutional interest in the asset class.

He explains that for much of the last five years, interest and adoption were a “slow drumbeat,” but that changed dramatically in 2025. 

“We’re at a tipping point, and a tipping point in a positive direction,” Chalom says, reflecting on the past five months. 

Chalom acknowledges that part of that shift in sentiment stems from politics and policy, pointing to the election of pro-crypto US President Donald Trump, along with the passage of the Genius Act stablecoin bill and the hoped-for approval of the Clarity Act.

He also says these past few months have been a lightbulb moment for TradFi executives.

“I think it’s even more so this idea that they understand the potential,” Chalom says.

The obvious part of that potential is the growing institutional and client demand for Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins. The second aspect is the more speculative idea that with the crypto market now worth about $4 trillion, the lure of tokenizing real-world assets and securities is “tempting them that this is a $100 trillion opportunity.”

“These traditional financial institutions are interested in adopting, they’re interested in transforming,” he says.

“I think what you’re going to end up seeing is these parallel rails are going to come together into just new financial rails, and you’re not going to have DeFi and TradFi. You’re just going to have decentralized finance,” he adds.