Institutional Leaders Position Ethereum as Core Layer for Future Finance

Senior executives from several of the world’s largest Ethereum-focused firms gathered in Seoul on Wednesday to make a direct case to institutional investors that Ethereum is evolving into a core layer of future financial infrastructure—and that ETH offers exposure to that shift beyond short-term price moves.

Panel frames Ethereum as institutional infrastructure

The discussion took place during the first panel session of Ethereum Korea One, hosted at blockchain infrastructure firm DSRV’s headquarters in Seoul. The session, titled “Ethereum as an Asset I: Global Institutional Thesis,” featured Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink; Hiroki Tahara, CEO of HODL1; and Michael M. Lee, CEO of Parataxis Ethereum, with Lava VC venture partner Hasieun Ha moderating.

Chalom, a former long-time executive at BlackRock where he spent roughly two decades leading digital asset efforts, urged investors not to anchor on near-term volatility. He compared the moment to early Amazon, arguing that understanding the magnitude of a structural shift matters more than obsessing over daily performance. In his view, Ethereum is positioned to reshape how value moves and how assets such as equities are traded—making ETH a vehicle for exposure to “new financial infrastructure” rather than a simple directional bet on price.

Market environment and institutional resilience

Chalom also described the current market as an attractive “risk-reward” zone, citing experience through multiple crypto downturns. He said that across repeated drawdowns, Bitcoin and Ethereum showed stronger builders and improved standards, arguing that long-run network resilience is more important to institutions than short-term sentiment.

Sharplink, which Chalom said is the second-largest corporate holder of ETH globally, holds more than 870,000 ETH. The company is staking its holdings and working with partners including EtherFi and EigenCloud on a liquid restaking product valued at about $200 million, reflecting what the panel described as a growing set of yield and collateral strategies built around Ethereum’s staking economy.

Governance, rebuilding, and regulatory bridging

Tahara presented a different emphasis: governance and rebuilding. He said the Seoul event marked his first participation in an English-language session outside Japan. He described how he regained operational control of HODL1 after uncovering alleged wrongdoing by prior management, leading a shareholder initiative that replaced the entire leadership team.

When he became CEO, Tahara said he inherited an organization with effectively “zero employees” and “zero business,” and then rebuilt around Ethereum-focused infrastructure. He argued that the timing is favorable as Japan’s regulatory framework continues to evolve and more financial institutions explore public blockchains.

In Tahara’s framing, HODL1’s advantage is bridging technical architecture and local compliance—an increasingly important capability as institutions seek both execution-grade systems and regulatory clarity. He also added that amid intensifying geopolitical uncertainty, Ethereum’s global, permissionless liquidity rails can function as connective tissue across markets.

Listed-entity disclosure and the L1–L2 trade-off

Lee described the panel as a public debut of sorts for Parataxis Ethereum, which he said is South Korea’s first KOSDAQ-listed Ethereum “digital asset treasury” company. He said the firm has spent significant time meeting disclosure obligations and governance requirements typical of listed entities, noting that such constraints can reduce visibility while improving institutional credibility.

On risks, Lee pointed to a strategic question for Ethereum: the relationship between the base layer (L1) and the rapidly expanding layer-2 (L2) ecosystem. While L2s are widely viewed as scaling solutions, he said debate has grown over whether some designs could “cannibalize” parts of the base layer’s economic activity over time. Lee framed this tension as a challenge for the broader community to address collaboratively.

Institutional persuasion: metrics, staking, and validator distribution

Chalom said Ethereum’s most consequential risk is not technical but behavioral—what he described as the difference between “good actors” and “bad actors.” He warned that some networks market themselves as decentralized while retaining single points of failure, and he expressed concern that institutions could shift toward more “permissioned” chains if Ethereum’s ecosystem fails to maintain its core principles.

When asked to name a single on-chain metric that could persuade skeptical institutions, Chalom cited Ethereum’s scale and resilience: more than one million validators distributed across 84 countries, a track record of more than a decade of continuous operation, and the fact that over half of stablecoin circulation runs on Ethereum.

Tahara emphasized validator count and geographic dispersion as indicators of censorship resistance. Lee highlighted Ethereum’s staking base—about 37 million ETH—and the multi-week unbonding period, arguing that lock-up dynamics reflect deep conviction from long-term participants.

Outlook for South Korea’s builders

Closing the session, Chalom said he has visited Seoul multiple times since last September and observed accelerating energy among South Korea’s developer and builder community. He said that regardless of whether regulatory clarity arrives in weeks or months, the ecosystem’s priority should be to keep building community, shipping protocols, and delivering strong user experiences—factors he suggested will ultimately influence how readily institutions adopt Ethereum-backed infrastructure.