When big money moves, markets listen. And right now, Ethereum may be lining up for one of its biggest moments yet.
Sharplink Gaming CEO Joseph Chalom thinks Ethereum’s total value locked (TVL) could 10x in 2026, and his reasoning isn’t hype. It’s about institutions, stablecoins, and real-world assets finally moving on-chain.
Sharplink isn’t talking from the sidelines either. The company holds 797,704 ETH, worth around $2.33 billion, making it the second-largest public Ethereum treasury holder.
Stablecoins: the quiet growth engine
Chalom believes the stablecoin market alone could hit $500 billion by December 2026. Right now, stablecoins sit around $308 billion. That’s roughly 62% growth ahead — and here’s the key:
Over half of all stablecoin movement happens on Ethereum.
More issuance. More transactions. More capital sitting inside Ethereum’s ecosystem. And when TVL rises, sentiment usually follows.
Smooth move from SharpLink, merging staked ETH into real institutional treasury income streams. Built on Ethereum, it’s efficient, direct, and made for dedicated holders.
— Aimee.eth (@aimeehall_eth) December 29, 2025
Partner projects: $SBET | $SBETon | $BTBT | $BMNR
Check if you qualify: https://t.co/xUx08TaDNt
No bridges… pic.twitter.com/dBw88T00O6
Tokenized real-world assets are next
Chalom also expects tokenized assets, think funds, securities, treasury products, to explode to $300 billion. We’re not talking experimental pilots anymore. He says the industry is shifting from:
❌ tokenizing one product at a time
➡️ to
✅ tokenizing entire fund structures
And look who’s already circling:
- JPMorgan
- Franklin Templeton
- BlackRock
These aren’t crypto startups. These are trillion-dollar institutions testing Ethereum as infrastructure. That’s the signal.
But not everyone is bullish on ETH price
Here’s the twist. Crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen recently warned Ethereum might not hit new highs in 2026, largely because of Bitcoin’s macro pressure. Right now ETH trades around $2,924, down about 3% over the last month.
So you may see:
📈 TVL up
📉 Price potentially lagging (at least short term)
And that’s normal in early institutional phases. Capital parks. Utility grows. Price trails — then reacts.
The kicker: sovereign funds + AI agents
Chalom also expects sovereign wealth funds and tokenization activity to increase 5–10x next year as competitive pressure ramps up.
Plus, he predicts:
- on-chain AI agents
- prediction markets going mainstream
More tools. More use cases. More economic activity living on Ethereum rails.
Institutional adoption is no longer “coming someday.” It’s moving, slowly, quietly, but decisively toward Ethereum.
If Chalom is right, 2026 may not just be about price charts. It could be the year Ethereum becomes the financial backbone institutions actually use. And that’s the kind of shift that compounds over time.
