SharpLink CEO calls onchain settlement the ‘greatest risk reduction’ for global finance

SharpLink Gaming's CEO, Joseph Chalom, stated that the  Ethereum treasury company 's ultimate goal is to bring the traditional market structure on-chain.

At a panel discussion at Wednesday's Korea Blockchain Week 2025 Impact conference, Chalom said the company is looking beyond the goal of owning 5% of Ethereum supply as a treasury firm.

"It really doesn't matter if we get there first or we get there second," Chalom said. "Are we fighting over the $4 trillion of crypto market cap? Or is our target the $700 trillion of traditional finance market structure that we believe should be on a decentralized network that's trusted, programmable, digitally native, that is atomic in instant settlement." 

Chalom, who spent most of his career at BlackRock, called the elimination of time and cost friction in traditional financial markets the "greatest risk reduction" in financial services history. To seize this opportunity, Chalom said treasury companies must focus on promoting protocols, stablecoin initiatives, and institutional DeFi in their respective chain ecosystems.

Digital asset treasuries , or DATs, have become one of the biggest trends in crypto, signifying the rising institutional acceptance and demand for the asset class. Spurred by Michael Saylor's success with Strategy's bitcoin treasury, dozens have appeared, providing exposure to various cryptocurrencies. 

During the same discussion, Solana treasury firm DeFi Development Corp's CSO, Dan Kang, said that buying an ETF is like sitting on a life raft in a river, but buying a DAT is like riding a speedboat. 

"It gets you to your destination much faster. You get the benefit of the price action of the current, but you can accelerate, you can steer, you can slow down if you need to," Kang said.

Success metric of DATs

The two treasury firm executives also discussed metrics that gauge the success of DATs.

Chalom listed three criteria: daily average trading volume, great management and stock liquidity.

"Most of the fundraising is coming through something called an at-the-market facility, and you do that by listing and issuing new securities every day as a percentage of your daily volume," Chalom said. "You have to have great management, and you have to have a liquid stock. Otherwise, you're going to end up doing dilutive deals."

On the other hand, DeFi Development Corp's Kang mentioned SOL per share growth, as he explained the company must be able to provide shareholders with more of the underlying asset over time.

"The only reason Microstrategy has outperformed bitcoin by 2.5x over the last few years is … it has driven bitcoin per share denominated in bitcoin, by 5x over the past five years," Kang said. 

Weathering bear cycles

The future of crypto asset treasuries is a growing concern, as most were established during the recent bull run and now face a potential market downturn. Nonetheless, the two DAT experts say their proof-of-stake treasury vehicles are relatively free from such risks.

"The bigger your treasury gets, the more of it you can stake, the more you can deploy on-chain, the more of an organic source of yield that you have, and they're really like revenue-generating business and incredibly high incremental margins," Kang said. "I think a share repurchase program makes a lot of sense, but only if you are not going to sell the underlying asset to repurchase your shares."

Chalom said he's in the game to build an operating company out of SharpLink that builds additional revenue businesses that lend, borrow, run transactions, validate, and secure transactions with billions worth of ETH the company owns.

"I'm not in this to create a 5% ownership in ETH and stop, and do nothing and just become a giant dividend company," Chalom said. "We're gonna lift the community, we're going to seed and support protocols, and over time, we're to help accelerate institutional adoption of digital assets, and it's gonna transform the world."