BlackRock's 20-year veteran goes all-in on Ethereum. Joseph Chalom joins SharpLink, aiming to become the Ethereum equivalent of MicroStrategy.

Author: Zen, PANews

As a yield-generating asset, Ethereum continues to attract institutional capital through mechanisms such as staking and re-staking. Recently, Joseph Chalom, a 20-year executive at BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company, announced that he has joined SharpLink Gaming (ticker: SBET), a publicly traded Ethereum treasury, as co-CEO, marking a new chapter in his career.

Following Chalom's announcement, SharpLink Gaming immediately purchased over 77,000 ETH over the weekend, all of which was staked. SharpLink now holds approximately 438,000 ETH, closely following Bitmine, another ETH treasury strategy firm. The two are also vying for the title of "ETH's MicroStrategy," competing to acquire ETH. Bitmine, thanks to the influence of its chairman, Tom Lee, a veteran analyst known as the "Wall Street Calculator," attracted significant investment from Cathie Wood's Ark Invest. SharpLink's support team, primarily comprised of cryptocurrency backgrounds, was in urgent need of a leader with connections in traditional finance to attract Wall Street capital, making Chalom the perfect choice.

Ranking of Ethereum Holdings by Public Companies

From law firm to cryptocurrency, SBET spent $12.5 million to poach him

Joseph Chalom graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University and received his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School. Chalom began his career as a corporate and regulatory counsel, serving as a senior associate at Arnold & Porter and Skadden, Arps LLP, providing legal services to numerous investment banks and large corporations. In 2005, Chalom joined BlackRock and transitioned into the fintech sector. Previously, he served as Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock Solutions, a subsidiary of BlackRock, where he led the productization and external expansion of Aladdin, a global institutional-grade risk and investment management platform, transforming it from an internal tool into a core fintech hub serving over $10 trillion in assets globally. In early 2020, Chalom was promoted to Managing Director and Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships, overseeing BlackRock's strategic planning and implementation across data and indexes, digital assets, and technology ecosystems. He also led collaborations with leading digital asset infrastructure institutions such as Coinbase Prime, Securitize, BNY Mellon, and Circle. Through cross-border joint ventures, technology integration, and product promotion, he deeply connects traditional asset management platforms with the blockchain ecosystem.

"After 20 years at BlackRock, I'm beginning a new chapter and joining SharpLink Gaming as co-CEO." In late July of this year, Chalom, a senior executive at the traditional asset management giant, announced that he would shift his focus to cryptocurrency and Ethereum treasury. SharpLink Gaming founder and CEO Rob Phythian will gradually transition to the role of president and remain on the board, leading the company alongside Chalom.

ConsenSys founder and SharpLink chairman Joseph Lubin stated that Chalom has been influential in driving institutional digital asset adoption, and his joining is a strong endorsement of SharpLink's Ethereum treasury strategy and the company's vision of Ethereum becoming global financial infrastructure.

According to SharpLink Gaming's Form 8-K (Report on Significant Events) filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the total cost of recruiting Chalom was $12.5 million. Chalom will receive a fixed annual base salary of $750,000, with an annual performance bonus target of 100% of base salary, up to 150% if performance exceeds targets. The company also granted Chalom a one-time signing bonus of $7 million in restricted stock units (RSUs). Two-thirds of these units (approximately $4.66 million) vest annually over time, and the remaining one-third (approximately $2.33 million) vests based on three-year performance targets. Furthermore, under the terms of the Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP), SharpLink has set a minimum incentive for Chalom of $4 million in fiscal year 2026.

BlackRock's Leading Crypto Asset ETF

Joseph Chalom is one of the key figures driving BlackRock's digital asset strategy.

Under his leadership, BlackRock launched the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the world's largest Bitcoin ETF, in January 2024. It currently manages over $80 billion in assets, significantly surpassing Bitcoin ETFs like Fidelity FBTC and Grayscale GBTC, which hold approximately $20 billion to $24 billion. Earlier this month, IBIT's holdings exceeded 700,000 BTC, representing 55% of the total Bitcoin held by all US spot Bitcoin ETFs. Furthermore, IBIT generates roughly the same annual fee income for BlackRock as its flagship product, the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, which holds nearly nine times the assets.

On July 23, 2024, after more than six months of application and preparation, BlackRock launched the iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA), providing traditional investors with a regulated and direct way to participate in the cryptocurrency market. As of July 25, a year after its launch, ETHA reached $10 billion in assets under management (AUM), representing approximately half of the total assets under management for Ethereum ETFs. Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas noted that this milestone makes ETHA the third fastest ETF in history to reach this figure, behind only BlackRock's IBIT and Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).

In addition, Chalom launched BUIDL, the first Ethereum-based treasury bond tokenization product. This product brings traditional treasury bond yields onto the blockchain, providing institutional clients with an innovative solution that combines compliance and liquidity. He also facilitated and led strategic collaborations between BlackRock and digital asset infrastructure firms such as Coinbase Prime, Securitize, BNY Mellon, and Circle. Through cross-border joint ventures, technology integration, and product promotion, he is deeply connecting traditional asset management platforms with the blockchain ecosystem.

Intersection and Origins with the Ethereum Ecosystem

BlackRock's foray into the cryptocurrency space dates back a decade, driven by former President and COO Mary-Catherine Lader, who recently departed Uniswap.

In 2015, Lader led BlackRock's blockchain working group, organizing employees from various teams to conduct months of cryptocurrency research. She met with industry experts such as Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, discussing potential investment opportunities, blockchain applications, and partnerships in the field. Joseph Lubin was then CEO of ConsenSys and later became Chairman of SharpLink, which may have been the earliest time he and Chalom crossed paths. Joseph Chalom's involvement in and drive for the crypto asset business began in early 2020, when Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock's Head of Digital Assets, and his digital asset team began reporting to him. At the time, Chalom was serving as Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock Solutions, a subsidiary that developed the Aladdin system, an integrated fintech platform initially used for BlackRock's internal risk management and investment process management, and later became a core platform for global institutional clients. It's worth noting that Mitchnick joined BlackRock in 2018, becoming the firm's first full-time employee focused on cryptocurrency and marking the beginning of BlackRock's systematic research into the crypto market. For his first two years, Mitchnick reported to Lader, who left BlackRock in 2021 to join Uniswap.

In August 2022, under Chalom's leadership, BlackRock partnered with Coinbase. Coinbase Prime will provide cryptocurrency trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting capabilities to Aladdin's institutional clients. Chalom stated that his institutional clients are increasingly interested in entering the digital asset market and are focused on how to effectively manage the operational lifecycle of these assets.

As his crypto business progressed, Chalom became a staunch supporter of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Regarding the crypto market bear market expected in the second half of 2022, Chalom told Business Insider, "Despite the cryptocurrency winter, its market capitalization remains at trillions of dollars. We see the accelerated development of these technologies creating both opportunities and increased efficiency."