Will Ethereum Treasuries Push ETH to $10K by 2026?

It'll be much higher next year. And if you hold it for the long term, I think you're getting in at a very good entry price because financial services is going to be massively disrupted and it's going to happen on Ethereum.

So why don't you give price predictions?

I think I like to be right more than wrong and I think no one can understand what's going to happen in the market. But if you take a step back and take a fundamental view that stablecoins are going to grow massively, real world tokenized funds are just in the beginning of the first inning and institutional access to defi is going to happen on decentralized networks. And if that happens on Ethereum, and so far that's where the action is, the price of Ether will go up, which is why investing in a digital asset treasury company now is early stages. You didn't miss the price action yet.

So it is funny because your arch nemesis, Tom Lee, number one for ETH Treasuries, you guys are number two. He's always giving out price predictions. He loves a price prediction in his sleep, whatever it is, he's always given one out. Do you ever look at that and look at Tom Lee and go oh, maybe I, I should, I should put one out just to, you know, even the playing field.

I admire Tom Lee. He's got three jobs, I probably have one or two and he's a macro researcher and I love the fact that he's out putting price predictions out there. I'd rather share a fundamental, very simple valuation framework. The more assets secured on Ethereum and right now it's securing 65% of stablecoins, over 80% of tokenized assets. The more assets secured on Ethereum, the value of ETH will be more secure. But I admire Tom and I love that he's out there throwing out price predictions.

So there's no beef between you two. Obviously the one and two spot, there's no.

There's a great word that I learned when I worked at blackrock, it's called co coopetition. You cooperate and you compete. But the beautiful thing is if there are really smart people out there who can attract capital because they believe there's a thesis and Tom and I same share the same thesis. There is a decade long macro trend of decentralized finance and it's going to happen on Etherium. We're both going to get to 5% ownership of ETH. We'll get there at different paces but we're actually more aligned than people think.

That Being said, I mean, what they own 2.4 million eth, I think now for bit mine, you guys, around 838,000. What's your plan? I guess to maybe take the crown, that number one spot. Surely that has crossed your mind.

But the number one spot is first building the best institutional team to manage money. Take a step back. If people entrust you with over 800,000 eth, you know, translated into almost, almost 4 billion of eth, you got to do it right, you got to do it institutional grade and you got to risk manage. It's called a Treasury. This is not a gambling or a speculation. I actually think the thought process is who's going to have the most positive impact on the Ethereum community through staking, restaking and basically helping secure protocols and allocating that ETH to those who are the best builders in the ecosystem. That is what I think long term success is. We're all going to get to 5% ownership of ETH. It's what you do with it. And we're really excited to do it. Right?

Absolutely. And obviously recently Vitalik Buterin has come out and said, you know, he's shown support for Treasuries, but at the same time he said that there is a risk of the over leveraged gain if not done responsibly. I mean, what's your thoughts on that? I mean, how can Sharplink avoid falling into that trap?

Well, first of all, we don't have debt right now. Our ETH isn't secured, we have no leverage on the balance sheet at the moment. The more important thing is, and I agree with Vitalik, people sometimes view Ethereum as the world's computer. I think that's overstating it for the moment. I think if you call it, and he does the world's ledger, what you're basically saying is not just traditional finance and crypto, but real world activity. AI agents are going to happen on eth. So I'm less worried about destabilizing eth, I'm more worried about making sure that the best protocols are supported and when you own stacks and stacks of eth, you can make sure that the right protocols are growing for the benefit of the community. So I'm on Vitalik side. This is going to become the global settlement ledger for all of finance.

It's funny because when you first came in, we spoke and you were saying you wanted to get super controversial because you had a feeling that people are starting to think the whole digital asset Treasuries are, you know, it's only A matter of time before they die. I mean, why is that? Why is everyone super bearish on them?

I think people are thinking of them as a trade and they measure their success almost on a daily basis. This is not a trade. This is a decade long opportunity. And if you think of a DAT as just an accumulation vehicle, you're missing the boat. People who own significant amounts of the underlying asset can be king makers and benevolent actors in the industry. So what's controversial is to not think of this as a trade. What's controversial is not to focus on today's price or today's action, but ask yourself what you can do to change the ecosystem. I am very bullish that everyone's focused on a $4 trillion crypto market cap. There's 700 trillion of financial services that are running on centralized friction systems that is ready for disruption. So the controversy here is not to think of a dad as a short term trade, but an opportunity to fundamentally change financial services.

So then what are the biggest misconceptions then other than that that you've seen or heard like at this conference because you came in quite energetic about the fact you were like oh my God. People are saying digital asset treasuries are dying out. And you sound like you are pretty passionate about the subject.

It's hard to argue that a new three three month old, and I'm talking about non Bitcoin, a three month old phenomenon of proof of stake debts on ETH and Solana, raising $15 billion from retail and institutional capital in a couple of months. If that is dying like I can't wait till they see the success. It's actually remarkable. And the pace of accumulation is actually faster than Michael Saylor did in his early days of running microstrategy. So I think people are completely missing the boat and focusing on short term price action instead of focusing on a decade long opportunity. We're in it for the long run. It's going to be incredible to watch this paradigm shift.

Absolutely. And you know, Moving on to ETFs, I mean we just recently saw in the US Solana got their first ETF staking as well. I mean how do you see eventually if and when staking becomes an option for Ethereum ETFs, how do you see that changing the, the whole ETF play for Ethereum?

So I need to make a full disclosure to your audience. I spent 20 years at Blackrock and in the last five, six years before I retired, I ran a team that looked after our digital asset strategy. So just to be clear. On January 11th of last year, Blackrock and the team launched the most successful ETF in history. I bet a bitcoin etf. Even more exciting was last July when we launched Ether. You know, like this is an ETF that's gathered more than $10 billion of assets. So I'm not trying to knock the ETFs, but the ETFs to date do not have the right to stake and they're waiting for the SEC approval. So ETH ETFs in the US cannot stake their ETH. Yeah, that will happen. But when it does happen, given the fact that they have to support daily redemption for their investors, they don't have a choice. If someone wants out of the etf, they have to give them their money back. Given that unlock Hughes and ETH have come up to 40 days even when the ETFs get approval. And they're remarkable vehicles, they're not going to be able to stake most of the their assets because they have to be able to provide daily liquidity. So I look forward. ETFs were an incredible invention in a great vehicle, but they're not going to be able to stake the way ADAPT can, where we can stake 100% of our ETH assets.

So what does that mean then for ETF investors that are looking at, you know, when staking ETFs for Ethereum does get approved, what does that mean for them and how does that impact them?

So I think if you just take a look back at the last few years, each of these vehicles is progress. In the early days, institutions could not own spot Bitcoin in eth. They didn't know how to custody it, they didn't trust the ecosystem. So what happened for several years was people invested instead in venture capital as a proxy to get exposure to crypto. Then the ETFs came out. It was an amazing progress because institutions owned hundreds of ETFs. It was very easy. You take a really cryptographic thing like Bitcoin and eth and you wrap it in a very common wrapper. And that was an advancement. I think of DATS as just another advancement where for no management fee, with a click of the button, you can own a public equity which you already have in your portfolio and get the full yield, get the full capital appreciation. But just to be clear, each of these products our progress. And the more important thing is that institutions come in not as speculators, not as gamblers, but they believe these are things that should be in their portfolio for the long run. That's where the crypto market goes from 4 trillion to what could be a massive growth in people's wallets. So I'm really optimistic that this is not just about crypto. It's about the tokenization and digitization of all of financial services and it's going to happen on decentralized Rails.

And you know, Joseph Lubin I think recently said that Ethereum will one day flip Bitcoin's monetary base. I mean, what's your thoughts on that?

So Joe is a friend. Joe is my chairman. Joe is a lot of things. He's the co founder of Ethereum, he's the founder of Consensus. I'm less interested in flipping bitcoin. I'm more interested in flipping, flipping financial services onto a neutral, decentralized, programmable instant settlement platform called Ethereum. To me it's less eth versus Bitcoin. It's actually about providing a more efficient way for financial markets to operate and in a much more democratic way. So I love Joe. I just don't wake up thinking that I'm going to flip bitcoin. I want to flip financial services into a more efficient ecosystem.

That was the smoothest way to avoid that question. I love it.

He's my chairman. He's my chairman.

So the next three to five years then what do you see for the Ethereum treasury landscape?

Yeah, I'll speak less about the Ethereum treasury landscape. I see stablecoins growing from about 250 to 300 billion to many trillion. Yeah, and you're seeing that happen not just in tether, not just in circle. USDC app chains are starting and applications are having their own stablecoins. That is going to be a massive growth vehicle on Ethereum. I think we're at the first or second inning in American. That's like the early stages of a sport of assets being tokenized first it started with a few funds. You're going to see every common equity listed on central exchanges and then operate in tokenized form. So you look three to four years from now the crypto industry is not going to be crypto anymore. It's going to be cryptographic, but it's going to be about digital securities and that's going to be measured in the many, many trillions multiples of the current market cap of crypto. And that's really good for decentralized networks.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure. This is awesome. Thank you everyone. So don't say anything funny about. No, no, not at all.

So what have you got on for the rest of the day.

I am seeing investors.

Okay.

And then I'm supposed to fly into a typhoon in Hong Kong tomorrow, and we'll see how that works. But I'm looking forward. I'm going to be in Singapore next week.

Yeah. Okay.

Are you going to be there?

I'm going to be a token next week as well. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

You there for the full week?

For week, yeah.

How many interviews will you do in a week?

20, maybe 20, 25.

But not as. Not everyone is as enthusiastic as this one.

Oh, no. 100%.

Do I sound like a crazy person?

No, I love it.

I'm, like, really optimistic.

I love it. And I think I talked to your team. If you've got five or six people.