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, who served as an executive at BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company, for twenty years, announced his joining of the publicly listed Ethereum treasury company SharpLink Gaming (Ticker: SBET) as co-CEO, marking a new chapter in his career.

After Chalom announced his joining, SharpLink Gaming promptly purchased over 77,000 ETH over the weekend and staked all of it. SharpLink now holds approximately 438,000 ETH, closely following another ETH treasury strategy company, Bitmine, as both compete for the position of "Ethereum version of MicroStrategy," vying to buy ETH. Under the leadership of Tom Lee, the board chairman and a seasoned analyst known as "Wall Street's Oracle", Bitmine attracted significant investments from Cathie Wood's Ark Invest. SharpLink's support team primarily has a background in the crypto space and urgently needs a leader with traditional financial connections to attract Wall Street capital, making Chalom the ideal choice.

Ranking of Ethereum Holdings by Public Companies

Transitioning from Law Firm to Cryptocurrency, SBET Lures Talent with $12.5 Million

Joseph Chalom graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and later earned a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School. He began his career as a corporate and regulatory legal advisor, serving as a senior attorney at Arnold & Porter and Skadden, Arps LLP, providing legal services to several investment banks and large corporations.

In 2005, Chalom joined BlackRock, transitioning into the fintech sector. He served as the Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock Solutions, leading the productization and external expansion of Aladdin, a global institutional risk and investment management platform, transforming it from an internal tool into a core fintech hub serving over $10 trillion in assets worldwide.

In early 2020, Chalom was promoted to Managing Director and Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships, fully responsible for BlackRock's strategic planning and execution in areas such as data and indices, digital assets, and technology ecosystems, and led collaborations with top digital asset infrastructure firms like Coinbase Prime, Securitize, BNY Mellon, and Circle. Through cross-industry joint ventures, technology integration, and product promotion, he deeply connected traditional asset management platforms with the blockchain ecosystem.

"After 20 years at BlackRock, I will start a new chapter by joining SharpLink Gaming as co-CEO." In late July this year, Chalom announced that his career focus would shift to cryptocurrency and Ethereum treasury. SharpLink Gaming's founder and CEO Rob Phythian will gradually transition to the role of president while remaining on the board, working alongside Chalom to lead the company's development.

Joseph Lubin, founder of Consensys and Chairman of SharpLink, stated that Chalom has an outstanding influence in promoting institutional-level digital asset applications, and his joining is a strong endorsement of SharpLink's Ethereum treasury strategy and the company's vision that "Ethereum will become the global financial infrastructure."

According to the Form 8-K (significant event report) submitted by SharpLink Gaming to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the total hiring cost to attract Chalom was $12.5 million. This includes a fixed annual base salary of $750,000, with an annual performance bonus target of 100% of the base salary, which can be increased to 150% for exceeding performance targets. The company also granted Chalom $7 million worth of restricted stock units (RSUs) as a one-time signing bonus, with 2/3 (approximately $4.66 million) vesting over time annually, and the remaining 1/3 (approximately $2.33 million) vesting based on three-year performance assessment targets. Additionally, under the long-term incentive plan (LTIP) terms, SharpLink set a minimum incentive amount of no less than $4 million for Chalom in the 2026 fiscal year.

Leader of BlackRock's Crypto Asset ETF

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

Under his leadership, BlackRock launched the world's largest Bitcoin ETF, "iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT)," in January 2024—currently managing over $80 billion in assets, significantly ahead of Fidelity's FBTC and Grayscale's GBTC, which manage around $20-24 billion. Earlier this month, IBIT's holdings surpassed 700,000 BTC, accounting for 55% of the total Bitcoin holdings among all U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. Additionally, the annual fee revenue generated by IBIT is comparable to that of BlackRock's flagship product, the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, although the latter's asset size is nearly nine times larger.

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, one year after its launch, ETHA's managed scale reached $10 billion, accounting for about half of the total assets managed by Ethereum ETFs. Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that this milestone makes ETHA the third-fastest ETF in history to reach this figure, following BlackRock's IBIT and Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).

Additionally, Chalom launched the first tokenized government bond product based on Ethereum, BUIDL, which brings traditional government bond yield rights on-chain, 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 like Coinbase Prime, Securitize, BNY Mellon, and Circle, deeply connecting traditional asset management platforms with the blockchain ecosystem.

Intersection and Origins with the Ethereum Ecosystem

BlackRock's attempts to enter the cryptocurrency space can be traced back ten years, driven by former President and COO Mary-Catherine Lader, who recently left Uniswap.

In 2015, Lader led BlackRock's blockchain working group, organizing employees from different teams to conduct months of research on cryptocurrencies and engage with industry experts like Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin. They explored potential investment opportunities, applications of blockchain, and partnerships in the field. At that time, Joseph Lubin was already the CEO of Consensys and later became the Chairman of SharpLink, which may have been the earliest point of intersection between him and Chalom.

Joseph Chalom's clear engagement with and promotion of digital asset business began in early 2020 when BlackRock's digital asset head Robert Mitchnick and his digital asset team started reporting to Joseph Chalom. At that time, Chalom was serving as the Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock Solutions, whose Aladdin system is an integrated fintech platform initially used for BlackRock's internal risk and investment process management, later becoming a core platform for global institutional clients.

Notably, Mitchnick joined BlackRock in 2018 as the first full-time employee focused on the cryptocurrency field, marking the beginning of BlackRock's systematic research into the crypto market. In the first two years of his employment, Mitchnick reported to Lader, who chose to leave BlackRock in 2021 to join Uniswap.

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

As the crypto business progressed, Chalom also became a staunch supporter of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. In an interview with Business Insider during the bear market of the second half of 2022, Chalom stated, "Despite the winter in cryptocurrency, its market value still stands at trillions of dollars. We see the accelerated development of these technologies creating opportunities and enhancing efficiency."

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。