Ethereum Vs. Solana: Why BlackRock’s Former Crypto Head Is Betting On ETH
SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom, who beforehand led BlackRock’s digital belongings technique, framed the Ethereum-versus-Solana debate as a mismatch between narrative and precise institutional conduct: TradFi corporations could reward velocity and low charges, however the highest-value monetary use circumstances are gravitating to networks optimized for belief, safety, and liquidity.
Why Ethereum Beats Solana
Speaking with CoinDesk’s Jennifer Sanasie on Jan. 26, Chalom said he would keep away from positioning his view as opinion and as a substitute level to what he referred to as observable market alerts. “Maybe I’ll simply share information,” he stated. “The reality is that Ethereum has been round for 10 years. It’s the safe, trusted, and liquid ecosystem. And I speak about each the layer 1 mainnet in addition to the lengthy set of layer 2s who assist do this rollup technique.”
That longevity, in his telling, issues as a result of establishments aren’t choosing chains the way in which customers choose apps. They’re choosing settlement rails for transferring cash, tokenizing belongings, and representing possession, workflows the place operational failure and safety assumptions are existential. Solana, Chalom acknowledged, has carved out a fame for efficiency. But he drew a tough line on reliability. “Solana has been quick and low cost but it surely has not been safe. It has had downtime,” he stated, arguing that downtime risk is disqualifying for “high worth initiatives.”
Chalom’s thesis is that when the use case is “tokenizing belongings” and “transferring cash,” the choice standards compress into three buckets. “The actual establishments who care solely about three issues,” he stated, are “belief, safety, and liquidity.” On that foundation, he argued, “they’re constructing on Ethereum for high worth initiatives,” including: “It’s taking place on Ethereum.”
He additionally anchored the comparability in stablecoin and tokenized-asset exercise, citing a pointy share hole as proof of the place the market is allocating severe quantity. “More than 65% of stablecoins and tokenized belongings are taking place there,” Chalom stated, describing that as “10x what you see on Salana.” He strengthened the directional declare instantly after: “Ethereum leads in high high quality belongings in DeFi, tokenization, and secure cash by an element of 10 to at least one over Salana. And that hole is simply getting bigger.”
Still, Chalom didn’t argue for a single-chain world. Instead, he mapped Ethereum and Solana to totally different product surfaces based mostly on safety tolerance. “I do suppose there’s a job for affordable, quick, much less safe chains,” he stated, and urged Solana’s comparative benefit reveals up the place finality speed and value trump institutional-grade assurances. “I believe Solana will win within the memecoin, possibly the gaming area the place truly safety issues loads much less and velocity issues extra.”
The subtext is a segmentation story: Ethereum because the default rail for high-value, regulated, reputation-sensitive flows; Solana because the venue for high-throughput client and speculative exercise the place customers settle for totally different threat tradeoffs. Chalom insisted this isn’t about persuasion a lot as migration patterns. “It’s not my perspective,” he stated. “People are voting with their ft.”
Notably, SharpLink Gaming (Nasdaq: SBET) has emerged as one of many largest company ETH holders, with public trackers placing its holdings at roughly 864,840 ETH (about $2.5B at current marks).
At press time, ETH traded at $2,921.
