According to Joseph Chalom, Co-CEO of Sharplink, Ethereum's Total Value Locked (TVL) could increase tenfold in 2026 as adoption increases across multiple use cases and institutional investors.
Sharplink Gaming is the second largest public Ethereum treasury company, holding 797,704 ETH (ETH), value roughly $2.33 billion on the time of publication, in line with data from Ethereum Treasuries.
“The stablecoin market will reach $500 billion by the tip of next 12 months,” Chalom predicted in an X post on Friday, as the whole stablecoin market cap currently stands at around $308.46 billion. Moving to $500 billion would represent a rise of about 62%.
Source: Joseph Chalom
Since greater than half of all stablecoin activity (54%) occurs on Ethereum, such a rise could potentially help increase the network's TVL.
Tokenized RWA Market to Reach $300 Billion in 2026: Chalom
Chalom also expects significant growth in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and predicts the market will reach $300 billion in 2026. “Tokenized assets will increase tenfold in AUM in 2026, from tokenization of individual funds, stocks and bonds to full fund complexes,” said Chalom.
He noted that increased interest over the past 12 months from financial services firms akin to JPMorgan, Franklin Templeton and BlackRock was a key catalyst.
A rising TVL is commonly taken as an indication of growing interest within the network, which may strengthen market sentiment and potentially influence the asset's price. According to DeFiLlama, Ethereum’s TVL is around $68.20 billion on the time of publication.
Ether is down 12.36% within the last 12 months. Source: CoinMarketCap
However, crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen said on Tuesday that given Bitcoin's current conditions, Ether is unlikely to succeed in latest highs in the approaching 12 months. According to CoinMarketCap, Ether is trading at $2,924 on the time of publication, down 3.12% over the past 30 days.
Sovereign wealth funds have increased their holdings of Ethereum
Chalom expects Ethereum holdings and sovereign wealth fund tokenization activity to grow by five to tenfold over the following 12 months.
“In 2026, this may increase significantly as competitive dynamics increase. When nobody was willing to attack cryptocurrencies from this pool of allocators, it was protected to remain out,” Chalom said.
Chalom also predicted that on-chain AI agents and prediction markets will “go mainstream,” which he said will result in more activity and value for the ecosystem.
