Investors have not priced the possibility of Ethereum (ETH) to replace Wall Street’s outdated settlement infrastructure, according to Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom and Eigenlayer founder Sreeram Kannan.
During the discussion on the Milk Road podcast on September 15th, Charom, who previously led BlackRock’s digital assets initiative, outlined the fundamental friction that plagues traditional finance.
The current system requires a one-day settlement period, creates counterparty risks, and forces market participants to post collateral for overnight funding.
He said:
“The current ecosystem is extremely inaccessible and full of friction, where intermediaries are taking rent.”
The CEO of Sharplink then contrasted the dynamics of Ethereum’s atomic settlement ability and its dynamics to run transactions in seconds without counterparty risk. He also argued that Ethereum represents “a new fundamental new kind of public infrastructure, like Web1, where the Internet was the category of investment.”
He positioned blockchain as a universal reconciliation layer in both the financial and economic systems.
Programmable Financial Transformation
The programmable nature of Ethereum allows portfolios to rebalance the portfolio through smart contracts, dividend distribution in minutes rather than days, and configurable transactions, allowing you to trade any asset against other assets at any time.
These features create what Chalom calls a “License to Win” for institutions that want more efficiency than the current system.
Kannan extended this vision beyond finance, describing Ethereum as a “verified, trustworthy platform” that solves counterparty risk through cryptographic verification rather than relying on institutional guarantees.
He acknowledged and explained that Eigenlayer will allow Ethereum to strengthen additional networks beyond the basic protocol.
“Verification is the substrate of society itself.”
Kannan mentioned AI agents validation, predictive markets such as Polymarket, and, for example, applications of autonomous systems that require trust without human supervision.
Timing of infrastructure investment
Both executives highlighted the shift from education to recruitment that occurs among institutional investors.
Chalom noted that while Bitcoin needed to explain the concept of digital gold, Ethereum demanded a deeper explanation of infrastructure over more time, but once understood it generated strong beliefs.
The launch of the Ethereum ETF in July 2024 became an inflection point for adoption, and the finance company currently accumulates approximately $14 million in ETH holdings.
Charom predicted acceleration beyond the pace of strategy’s Bitcoin accumulation, as institutional players recognize Ethereum’s productive asset characteristics through staking and debt yields.