BlackRock’s head of digital assets announced Friday that he’s leaving the Wall Street giant and joining the second-biggest Ethereum treasury company, SharpLink Gaming, as co-CEO.
Rob Phythian, SharpLink’s current CEO, will transition to the role of president over the next quarter and remain a member of the firm’s Board of Directors.
Joseph Chalom led BlackRock’s crypto push, which included the launch of Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds, as well as the firm’s $2.4 billion Ethereum-based tokenised fund.
“Ethereum is becoming the foundation of global finance,” Chalom said in an X post announcing the move. “That’s where the future is being built.”
The development comes as Ethereum excites a furore among institutional investors.
Investors have piled $3.3 billion into Ethereum ETFs over the past two weeks, the highest rate of inflows since the SEC greenlit the investment products last year.
Ethereum treasury companies, including SharpLink, have so far snapped up $5.3 billion worth of Ethereum and added it to their books.
The top institutional holder of Ethereum is Bitmine Immersion Technologies, a converted Bitcoin mining company, chaired by Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee.