Joseph Chalom and Danny Ryan discuss the institutional outlook on Ethereum and why it is “the only game in town.”
Bits + Bips is spreading its wings
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The institutions are here and they may have already picked their preferred blockchain.
Sharplink Gaming CEO Joseph Chalom and Etherealize co-founder Danny Ryan discuss the institutional outlook on Ethereum. They say the network is the only chain being discussed by institutions thinking about tokenization, dismissing Solana as a possible contender. They explore what this means for ether and why anticipated upgrades only strengthen the case.
Meanwhile, Danny maintains that L2s are still part of the Ethereum roadmap, albeit agreeing with Vitalik that they need to evolve.
Plus, why Joseph thinks privacy will unlock Ethereum's next DeFi wave and why Danny sees AI agents as the salve to crypto's UX woes, though he calls the current activity “a toy.”
Guest:
Joseph Chalom, President/CEO at SharpLink Gaming Inc.
Danny Ryan, Co-Founder & President of Etherealize
Links:
Unchained:
Vitalik Targets Block Building as Ethereum Prepares Glamsterdam Upgrade
Vitalik Buterin Lays Out Quantum Defense Plan for Ethereum
Can Solana Edge Out Ethereum to Win the AI Agent & RWA Race?
Ethereum Researchers Outline Seven Forks Through 2029 in New “Strawmap”
BlackRock Just Chose Uniswap. The Market Didn’t Care. Here’s Why.
Want to Hire an AI Agent? Check Their Reputation Via ERC-8004
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this interview, Camila Russo sits down with Danny Ryan — former Ethereum Foundation researcher and a key leader behind Ethereum’s shift to proof of stake — now Co-Founder & President at Etherealize, to talk about the next big wave for crypto: institutional adoption of Ethereum.
Recorded in Buenos Aires during Devconnect, Danny breaks down why the mood inside banks has flipped from “we can’t touch crypto” to “if we don’t adopt it, we’ll be left behind.” We dig into what institutions actually want beyond ETFs, why the biggest opportunity isn’t “tokenizing assets” but rewiring markets from first principles, and why privacy is table stakes for institutional-grade onchain finance.
We also cover the regulatory whiplash of the last few years, what’s changed, what still needs to be written into law, and why Danny believes Ethereum is uniquely positioned for serious capital markets infrastructure.
Key topics:
Why banks suddenly have Ethereum FOMO
The difference between “tokenizing assets” vs rewiring markets
Where the biggest inefficiencies are (credit, fixed income, esoteric institutional markets)
Why privacy + ZK are essential for institutionsCoordination problems, incentives, and who doesn’t want markets to upgrade
Ethereum’s edge: neutrality, uptime, decentralization, and security
👍 If you enjoyed this episode, like, subscribe, and share it with someone who still thinks institutions only care about ETFs.
This episode showcases four of the most important talks from our Bankless Summit event in Buenos Aires for Devconnect, each capturing how Ethereum is evolving as it enters the real world. Tomasz K. Stańczak reveals the EF’s new priorities around developer acceleration, founder support, institutional engagement, and unifying the L2 ecosystem. Ansgar Dietrichs explains why Ethereum is shifting from long-term exploration to near-term execution, detailing the plan to 3x L1 scale annually and accelerate real-time ZKVM progress. Dankrad Feist makes the case for a DeFi-centric L1 where Ethereum becomes the global liquidity layer for RWAs and high-value settlement. And Danny Ryan closes with a raw, personal account of building proof of stake, surviving an SEC scare, and why he still believes Ethereum can meaningfully reshape global finance. These talks matter because they chart the clearest picture yet of where Ethereum is heading, what the next decade requires, and how its core builders are steering it there.
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TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES
0:00 Intro
4:19 Tomasz K. Stańczak Ethereum's Next 5 Years
28:00 Ansgar Dietrichs Scaling Ethereum 2026: Why & How?
53:22 Dankrad Feist | Ethereum's DeFi Centric Strategy
1:10:22 Danny Ryan | The Last 8 Years: Ethereum, Burnout, & Coming Back
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Recorded live at the Permissionless IV conference, this conversation dives into Ethereum’s strategy to win over Wall Street.
Danny Ryan discusses how Etherealize is advising financial institutions to leverage Ethereum’s decentralization, resilience, and credible neutrality, while Joe Lubin explains why ConsenSys is taking a direct approach by accumulating ETH on Sharplink Gaming’s balance sheet, similar to MicroStrategy with Bitcoin.
Together, they unpack Ethereum’s strengths, institutional adoption strategies, and what it will take for Ethereum to become the foundation of the next-generation financial system.
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------
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
3:11 Ethereum's Evolution & Challenges
7:54 Regulatory Tensions & SEC Scrutiny
11:02 Ethereum's Resilience Against Regulation
14:47 Bridging TradFi & Decentralization
16:06 Institutional Adoption of Ethereum
17:19 Ethereum's Path Forward
21:51 Building for the Future
23:40 The Call for Problem Solving
24:41 Ethereum's Leadership Dynamics
33:25 Taking Ethereum to Wall Street
35:17 The Future of SBET & Ether
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RESOURCES
Joe Lubin
https://x.com/ethereumjoseph
Danny Ryan
https://x.com/dannyryan
Permissionless IV
https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Etherealize is back with a bold new thesis: ETH is digital oil. In this episode, Vivek and Danny Ryan unpack their freshly released report, The Bull Case for ETH, which positions ether as the next great store of value—and a future global reserve asset for the digital economy.
We explore ETH’s misunderstood monetary design, its strategic role for institutions, and why Wall Street is waking up to Ethereum not just as a network, but as an investable asset. This is the case for ETH as the asymmetric opportunity of this generation.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:52 The Bull Case for ETH
3:18 Why ETH?
6:35 Pitching to Wall Street
10:59 ETH is Digital Oil
21:29 ETH’s Monetary Policy
37:37 Why Hold ETH?
43:42 ETH/BTC Ratio
47:20 ETH is a Store of Value
53:55 Ethereum’s Scaling Path
1:03:08 Ethereum’s Renaissance
1:07:06 Ethereum Competitors
1:10:14 The Report
1:12:29 Vivek in Congress
1:13:33 Closing & Disclaimers
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RESOURCES
The Bull Case for ETH Report
http://ethdigitaloil.com/
VIvek Raman
https://x.com/VivekVentures
Danny Ryan
https://x.com/dannyryan
Etherealize
https://x.com/Etherealize_io
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
We’ve got the team behind Etherealize on the show today—Vivek Raman and Danny Ryan—to discuss their mission to onboard institutions, governments, and capital markets to Ethereum.
We explore how Ethereum is “open for business” with L2 scaling, modular architecture, and a maturing regulatory landscape. The Etherealize team breaks down their dual structure—a for-profit consulting and product arm alongside a nonprofit focused on R&D and policy—to drive institutional adoption.
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🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK
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🏦INFINEX | THE CRYPTO-EVERYTHING APP
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 Intro
00:07:12 Etherealize & Its Mission
00:15:29 Clients & Finances
00:20:17 Relation Between Ethereum Foundation & Etherealize
00:21:31 Etherealize's Funding
00:22:43 Etherealize's Competitions
00:26:02 Challenges & Roadblocks
00:28:15 What Success Looks Like for Etherealize
00:29:56 Etherealize's Co-Founders
00:31:10 Ethereum’s Upcoming Era
00:40:20 What Makes Ethereum Special
00:46:00 Political Effect on Ethereum
00:51:33 Community Support
00:54:51 Layer 1 & Etherealize
00:58:36 Hypothetical Scenarios with Ethereum
01:01:50 What’s Next for Etherealize
01:04:47 Some Unturned Stones
01:07:32 Closing & Disclosures
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RESOURCES
Etherealize
https://www.etherealize.com
Vivek Raman
https://x.com/VivekVentures
Danny Ryan
https://x.com/dannyryan
------
Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Danny Ryan is a coordinator at the Ethereum Foundation. He’s been on Bankless many times before. Usually, we’re talking about the Ethereum roadmap and what’s coming next. This time we’re talking about something different…a risk to Ethereum that Danny sees. A little over a year ago, Danny wrote a blog post titled “The Risk of LSDs”... discussing the various risk vectors that a dominant LSD presents to Ethereum…even naming Lido specifically in the process.
------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Ryan & David unpacking the episode: https://www.bankless.com/debrief-danny-ryan
------ A lot of people have decided that liquid staking with Lido is the place to do it. At the time of recording Lido has over 30% of all staked Ether. Does this present a systemic risk to Ethereum?
We did an episode called, “In Defense of Lido” with researcher Hasu who argued that Lido does not pose a systemic risk to Ethereum. In fact, Lido’s dominance is better than many other alternatives. We left that conversation half-finished when we published it in August 2023.
In today’s episode, we cover part two of that debate with Ethereum researcher and guest Danny Ryan who argues the opposite. Lido is a systemic risk to Ethereum and what to do about it.
We believe our role as podcasters for issues like this is to voice both sides of the argument in long-form conversations and healthy debate. It is exactly the kind of thing you don’t get on Twitter. That’s why we’ve given voice to both sides of this issue.
We think there are good actors who care about this ecosystem at Lido and in the broader Ethereum community and we’re sure this episode won’t be the last word on this subject.
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------ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro 7:41 Is Lido a Threat to Ethereum 8:57 Blog Post Thinking Change? 19:30 Uniswap 21:20 Theoretical Main Risks 25:45 God Mode 27:20 Practical Main Risks 34:00 Hasu Counter-Arguments 38:25 Permissionless Validator Set Mitigation 42:30 Veto Power Mitigation Argument 46:55 How Likely is the Lido Risk? 51:26 Client Team Positioning 55:00 How Special is the Lido Case? 57:45 One LST Inevitability 1:02:30 Solutions 1:06:55 Profit Maximization 1:09:00 Action Steps For Ethereum Decentralization 1:11:53 Can Ethereum Devs Do Something? 1:20:10 Hasu Questions Answered by Danny 1:22:45 Magnitude of the Lido Threat 1:24:20 How Can Lido Fix This? 1:25:59 Stick & Carrot for Lido 1:26:27 Silverlining of Lido Threat 1:29:05 Next Conversations 1:32:16 Closing & Disclaimers
----- RESOURCES
Danny Ryan https://twitter.com/dannyryan
Danny Ryan Blog Post https://notes.ethereum.org/@djrtwo/risks-of-lsd
Hasu’s Bankless Interview https://youtu.be/IfuUdIblfrY
----- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Tim Beiko and Danny Ryan are two of Ethereum’s lead coordinators, and work at the Ethereum Foundation to shepherd the many parts of Ethereum into the future.
How are they feeling on the other side of the Merge? What does this mean for Ethereum?
Few (if anyone) on the planet are more qualified to discuss the Ethereum Proof-of-Stake than these two, and we use this episode to reflect on the magnitude of the event and look forward to the future of the network.
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------ Resources:
Tim Beiko https://twitter.com/TimBeiko
Danny Ryan https://twitter.com/dannyryan
------- Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
In part one of this three-part Ethereum Merge special edition of The Scoop, Lex Sokolin — head economist at Consensys — examined how The Merge will improve web3’s reputation outside of the crypto space.
In this episode of The Scoop, Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan provides a technical overview of The Merge, and explains why it took longer than expected to prepare the network for its transition to proof of stake.
According to Ryan, changing the consensus mechanism of an active blockchain is no small feat:
“It's like we built this better plane and started flying it next to the existing proof-of-work plane, and we're actually taking the payload, we're taking all the contents out of the proof-of-work plane, and we're putting in this other plane in flight.”
Although The Merge was initially supposed to happen years ago, translating the mathematical concepts that underpin the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism into production took longer than expected.
As Ryan explains,
“You have these beautiful mathematical algorithms and proofs and design goals, and then when it comes time to actually turn that into something concrete and actionable, there's a lot of work to do.”
Episode 85 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Tim Copeland and Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan.
Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen
About Tron
On August 1st, 2022, Poloniex launched a faster and more stable trading system along with a brand new user interface. Poloniex was founded in January 2014 as a global cryptocurrency trading platform. With its world-class service and security, it received funding in 2019 from renowned investors, including H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. Poloniex supports spot and margin trading as well as leveraged tokens. Its services are available to users in nearly 100 countries and regions with various languages available. For more information visit Poloniex.com.
About Chainalysis
Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.
About IWC Schaffhausen
IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.
Danny Ryan is an Ethereum 2.0 researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, but he is also a cat owner, husband, and outdoors enthusiast. With some of the longest hair in crypto, Danny is solving extremely difficult and important problems at the protocol level for Ethereum. He is a communicator and a thinker—he is technical but also personable.
Danny is a human at the center of this movement, navigating through high-stakes subjective decisions and surrounded by smart, passionate people. This conversation also covers what it’s like working for a protocol. What’s it like working without a boss and concrete job description?
Danny’s answer? He cares a lot.
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------
Topics Covered:
0:00 Intro 4:00 Danny Ryan & His Hair 8:50 Coding & Building 12:45 Communicating 19:37 Subjective Decisions 25:05 Existential Risks 31:35 Work Culture & Accountability 38:08 After Ethereum 41:21 Proof of Stake 45:36 Social Interactions 51:42 More Proof of Stake 55:40 Bitcoin 58:10 Clean Money 1:00:15 Happy Devs & the Mock Merge 1:06:01 Personal Stuff 1:14:55 Closing
------ Resources:
Danny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dannyryan?s=20
----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures
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ETH 2.0 AMA with Danny Ryan
Danny Ryan is a researcher at the EF and is one of the lead coordinators behind the ETH 2. movement!
Listen to Danny's talk at ETH Online! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEh4u5a-43o&t=1539s
Check out ETH Online! https://ethglobal.online/#schedule
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Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time we may add links in this channel to products we use. We may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. We'll always disclose when this is the case.