AI agents will score $4T in fees by 2035 - Sharplink

 

Key topics
• With AI agents, stablecoins tokenization and defi we are seeing them all play a role in global finance.
• By 2035 consumers will save approximately $1.4T from agentic commerce through reduced fees
• Chalom believes super apps built on crypto rails will outperform traditional banking systems.
• ETH is up 70% from its June low, with Chalom saying he believes we're are out of the bear market.
• Sharplink is now the second largest public company holding ETH, and their stock has risen around 90% in the last 2 months.

 

 

Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom joins Gareth Jenkinson on The Starting Block to discuss how AI agents will rewire traditional finance, the case for Ethereum as the settlement layer of the future economy, and SharpLink's conviction on ETH as a treasury asset.

Chalom laid out his thesis that four elements are colliding for the first time in financial history: programmable money in the form of stablecoins, tokenized assets, DeFi and on-chain settlement, and AI agents as the automation layer. He argued that this convergence could save consumers $1.4 trillion a year by 2035, pointing to $15 trillion in idle low-interest cash in the US alone that agents will redirect to yield-bearing instruments, and predicting that cross-border remittance fees of roughly six percent and FX transaction costs of three to four percent will fall to near zero, mirroring how stock brokerage commissions collapsed in prior decades.

On the question of incumbent resistance, Chalom said banks will fight hard to protect their moats while also trying to co-opt agent capabilities, but argued that crypto-native super apps from the likes of Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Circle, Tether, and Robinhood have a structural advantage because they run all financial functions on unified rails. He warned that history shows every technology revolution produces two or three centralized winners who end up monetizing users, and said decentralized, credibly neutral chains like Ethereum are the best tool available to avoid that outcome repeating. He added that the generation set to inherit an $80 to $100 trillion wealth transfer from baby boomers trusts code and their phones more than institutions.

Turning to markets, Chalom said the bear market is over, noting ETH is up 70 percent since the end of June and that the failure of the Clarity Act to advance caused a stock market sell-off rather than a crypto sell-off, which he read as crypto maturing into its own asset class. He flagged the SEC's innovation exemption for tokenized stock trading as a major catalyst, noted that only $30 billion of assets are currently tokenized and called the runway enormous, and confirmed SharpLink remains the second-largest public holder of ETH in the world with Fidelity and BlackRock as its largest shareholders. He said the stock was up roughly 90 percent in the two months since June's lows and that conviction in ETH has only grown as the agentic finance narrative reinforces the Ethereum settlement-layer thesis.

About the guest
Joseph Chalom is the CEO of Sharplink, one of the largest Ethereum treasury companies in the world. Before joining Sharplink, Chalom spent 20 years at BlackRock leading its digital assets and blockchain strategy, including the launch of the iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) and the tokenized money market fund BUIDL.

Outline

00:07 - Introduction
02:37 - The Block Briefing
07:50 - Hot Seat: Joseph Chalom
09:06 - The Agentic Finance Thesis
11:03 - $1.4T in Savings by 2035
13:53 - Will Banks Fight or Fold?
19:00 - Consumer Trust & Adoption Curve
23:53 - Bitcoin & ETH Market Outlook
25:00 - Regulation & Tokenization Boom
27:18 - SharpLink ETH Treasury Update
29:57 - Robinhood Chain & RWA Momentum
31:43 - Conclusion

Guest links:
Joseph Chalom: https://x.com/joechalom
Sharplink: https://x.com/Sharplink

Host links:
Gareth Jenkinson - https://x.com/gazza_jenks
The Block - https://x.com/TheBlockCo