Ethereum Market Research Center

Ethereum Scaling: An Evolving and Strengthening L1–L2 Relationship

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 02:12:06 +0000

Ethereum isn’t moving away from L2s—it’s entering a stronger phase where L1 scaling and L2 innovation advance together. As Ethereum scales directly on L1, L2s are freed to differentiate, specialize, and innovate beyond pure scaling. The result is a more resilient, flexible, and bullish Ethereum ecosystem with deeper interoperability and broader use cases.

There have recently been thoughtful discussions about the evolving role of L2s within the Ethereum ecosystem, particularly in light of two important developments:

Beyond the Risk-On Trade: Why ETH and BTC Must Graduate to Fundamentals

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 02:29:29 +0000

Risk-on pricing built crypto fast. Fundamentals will decide whether it lasts.
Should ETH and BTC remain risk-on assets, or is it better that they transition to a fundamental-based valuation? The answer is not ideological, nor is it purely financial. It is structural. And it goes to the heart of whether crypto remains a speculative arena—or matures into indispensable global infrastructure.

This is not a question about short-term price performance. It is a question about what kind of assets Ethereum and Bitcoin ultimately become.

ETH outperformance expected | Standard Chartered

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 01:57:00 +0000

The outlook for Ethereum has evolved since August 2025. In absolute USD terms, weaker-than-expected Bitcoin performance has weighed on the broader digital asset complex, reflecting Bitcoin’s continued dominance as the sector’s macro barometer. As a result, near-term ETH-USD forecasts for 2026–2028 have been revised downward to reflect a softer backdrop and reduced momentum across crypto markets.

However, Ethereum’s relative positioning has strengthened. While Bitcoin’s performance has constrained headline valuations, Ethereum-specific fundamentals and structural drivers have improved. These include expanding network usage, maturing staking dynamics, stronger Layer-2 activity, and growing institutional engagement. On a cross basis, ETH-BTC is expected to gradually retrace toward its 2021 highs, signaling renewed relative outperformance versus Bitcoin.

The Internet’s Blueprint for Ethereum: A Trillion-Dollar Public Goods Valuation Framework

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 01:53:29 +0000

This report argues that Ethereum is fundamentally mispriced because markets value it as a for-profit company rather than as a public good. Like the Internet’s base protocols (TCP/IP), Ethereum’s true economic power lies not in the fees it extracts (revenue), but in the vast ecosystem of value it enables (externalities) . Traditional financial metrics fail to capture this “invisible” infrastructure value.

DOWNLOAD REPORT (or read the executive summary first, below)

The research proposes a holistic valuation framework for “Ethereum-the-System” based on three distinct lenses:

Unpacking the State of Ethereum in South Korea

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 22:41:11 +0000

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Ethereum’s development, usage patterns, and regulatory environment in South Korea as of 2025. Despite having one of the world’s most active retail crypto markets—with roughly 25% of adults holding digital assets—South Korea’s Ethereum market is dominated by centralized exchanges such as Upbit and Bithumb, which together account for more than 95% of trading volume. Onchain activity remains limited due to restrictive regulations, whitelist-style compliance requirements, and a cultural preference for short-term speculative trading. Most ETH holders access staking and DeFi indirectly through CEXs rather than interacting directly with Ethereum’s onchain economy.

The Future of Financial Infrastructure: Ethereum’s Layer 2 Landscape

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 22:18:38 +0000

The report offers a broad assessment of the upgradeability and management practices across current Layer-2 (L2) blockchain systems. As the ecosystem has expanded in both quantity and architectural diversity, the paper highlights that virtually all live L2s now support some form of upgrade mechanism—either by updating code or adjusting system parameters. This flexibility is essential, both for operators (e.g., rolling out optimizations, bug fixes) and users (ensuring reliability and security over time).

The Death of the Cycle: Why Ethereum Is No Longer a Momentum Trade

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 22:23:00 +0000

**We need to stop thinking about Ethereum through the old lens of “crypto cycles.”**The bull/bear, four-year-halving-cycle mindset is a relic of a market that was once driven almost entirely by speculation. It made sense when crypto had no fundamentals, no usage, no institutional adoption, and no real economic activity. Back then, narrative waves and liquidity swings were the only forces moving prices.

But **Ethereum is no longer that market.**It is no longer an experimental sandbox.
It is no longer a hobbyist technology.
It is no longer a momentum trade waiting for the next Bitcoin halving.

Ethereum Is Not a Blockchain: It’s a New System with Internet-Like Properties

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 20:22:31 +0000

Ethereum is Not a Blockchain

There’s a common shorthand that reduces Ethereum to a “blockchain.” It’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete — a category error that misses the magnitude of what Ethereum represents. Ethereum uses a blockchain, but it isn’t defined by one. Its core innovation lies not in how data is stored, but in how rules are enforced, collaboration is encoded, and economic systems are built.

Ethereum is, at its essence, a programmable coordination layer for the digital world, a new kind of system that behaves less like a database, and more like an open, self-sustaining organism.

The Institutional Layer of Ethereum: Obol Thesis

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:37:52 +0000

Ethereum now serves as the financial backbone of the Internet.

Over $230 billion in tokenized assets, stablecoins, and DeFi collateral move through its network. Leading financial institutions — from Wall Street to global asset managers — are not only building on Ethereum but increasingly holding ETH as a productive, yield-generating asset within their treasuries.

This emerging trend, which we describe as the rise of Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs), reflects a strategic shift: both public and private entities are accumulating high-quality digital assets like ETH to stake and earn native yield. These organizations view ETH less as a speculative token and more as core digital infrastructure. Their returns come from securing the network itself, not from leverage or counterparty risk.

The $50 Billion Cascade: Staking-Enabled ETFs and Corporate Treasuries

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 20:28:12 +0000

This report examines the systemic impact of a potential $50 billion-plus inflow into staking via institutional mechanisms—specifically staking-enabled ETFs and corporate treasuries. It argues that this tidal wave of capital, if realised, will transform network dynamics and reshape how digital-asset infrastructure is understood and used by major institutions.

Key drivers include the rise of spot and staking-enabled crypto ETFs, the growing accumulation of digital assets by corporate treasuries, and the resulting pressure on validator capacity, staking yields, and protocol governance frameworks. The report shows how these flows will not only affect token supply and staking incentives, but also introduce new centralisation and market-structure risks if not managed carefully.

Understanding the Implications of the Ethereum Gas Limit Increase

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:22:20 +0000

Executive Summary

The Fusaka upgrade is an upcoming Ethereum hard fork (tentatively scheduled for late 2025 / December 3, 2025) that bundles a set of protocol enhancements intended to scale Ethereum in a measured, low-risk way. (QuickNode Blog)
A key change expected is a substantial increase in the block gas limit (various sources point to increases up to ~150 million gas units). (Bankless)
Alongside the gas bump, Fusaka emphasizes data availability innovations (PeerDAS) and incremental changes to contract execution models. (QuickNode Blog)
From a business lens, the gas limit increase is effectively an expansion of Ethereum’s transactional capacity “headroom”, lowering pressure during peak times, stabilizing costs, and enabling more ambitious applications — all while requiring vigilance on validator / infrastructure demands, decentralization, and new equilibrium dynamics.
In the following sections, the report (1) contextualizes the upgrade and the gas limit change, (2) unpacks business implications and benefits, (3) highlights risks and tradeoffs, (4) offers strategic recommendations, and (5) presents a visual summary / infographic concept.

Context & Technical Background (Business-Relevant)

Ethereum’s Road to Fusaka

Ethereum’s scaling roadmap (often framed as the “Surge / Verge / Purge / Splurge” phases) includes periodic upgrades to improve throughput, data availability, and state management. Fusaka is part of this sequence. (LBank)

The New L1s Are Just Alternative Chains, Not L1 Killers

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 11:27:12 +0000

The “new corporate L1s” being launched by payments and stablecoin giants aren’t substitutes for a general-purpose, credibly neutral base layer like Ethereum. They are purpose-built execution environments whose economics, governance and risk envelopes look and feel like specialized infrastructure—powerful for their use cases, but fundamentally different animals. If anything, their success increases the surface area where Ethereum matters.

1) What corporate L1s are actually optimizing for

When a Stripe, Circle, or Tether builds a chain, they’re optimizing first for their own product constraints: throughput for a specific asset type (stablecoins), integrated compliance controls, predictable cost, and tight coupling to off-chain treasury/settlement systems. Circle says this explicitly with Arc—an “open Layer-1…purpose-built for stablecoin finance” designed to meet “enterprise-grade” demands. That is not a general-purpose mandate; it’s a payments-and-settlement mandate with programmable hooks.

Institutions Embrace Distributed Validators as Ethereum Marks 10th Birthday

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 21:25:41 +0000

In Q3 2025, Obol achieved a series of pivotal milestones that underscore its growing influence in Ethereum’s staking ecosystem. Chief among these, the protocol’s Total Value Staked (TVS) exceeded $3.2 billion, a 128% increase from Q2, with over 700,000 ETH (1.98% of staked ETH) under Obol Distributed Validator control.

This quarter saw notable institutional traction. Distributed Validators were adopted by major staking operators and integrated into Lido’s Curated Module by Stakely, Pier Two, and Blockdaemon — signaling maturation and alignment between DeFi infrastructure and advanced staking techniques. Obol also earned recognition within Blockworks’ Token Transparency Framework, achieving a 95% score, underlining its commitment to operational rigor and governance standards.

Ethereum’s Fusaka Upgrade: Scaling Smartly Without Sacrificing Decentralization

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 15:28:17 +0000

Ethereum’s roadmap has always been defined by a delicate balancing act: scaling for global use while remaining decentralized enough for anyone to participate. Each major upgrade—whether it was the Merge, the Dencun rollout, or now Fusaka—pushes the protocol closer to that equilibrium.

The upcoming Fusaka upgrade represents another step in Ethereum’s quiet revolution toward sustainable scalability. It introduces a new way for nodes to share the burden of storing and transmitting data through a system called PeerDAS (Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling). While this may sound highly technical, its real-world implications are profound. Fusaka will make it easier, cheaper, and more inclusive to run a validator—without compromising the integrity or availability of Ethereum’s data layer.

Realized Store of Value (RSOV): Measuring the Monetary Base of L1’s

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:12:12 +0000

Jamie Coutts introduces the Realized Store of Value (RSOV) framework as a new way to value Layer 1 (L1) blockchain tokens—not as tech equities based on fees, but as monetary assets whose strength comes from committed savings. Traditional valuation models (Metcalfe’s Law, Stock-to-Flow, or fee-based revenue) fail because they ignore circularity and volatility. RSOV measures the realized capital locked in staking and DeFi collateral, grounding valuation in actual committed funds rather than speculative flows.

Ethereum Staking in 2025 and Beyond – Institutional Staking Survey Results

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 18:48:22 +0000

Obol Collective collaborated with Lido Finance and Kaiko Data to survey the biggest players in Ethereum staking.

Participants included some of the industry’s top staking custodians, node operators, fund managers, and ETF issuers. These entities are sophisticated operators with significant staked ETH holdings ranging from <$250M up to the $10-50B range.

Their responses led to four key takeaways:

1. Major players put security and regulatory concerns first.
2. DVs are emerging as Ethereum’s endgame staking infrastructure.
3. Institutions are set for staked ETH ETFs.
4. Institutional staking will help ETH win.

Q&A with Danny Ryan on The Race To Rewire Wall Street with Ethereum

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 01:36:46 +0000

The Forbes piece written in a Q&A style argues Wall Street’s legacy financial systems are inefficient, with slow settlement and costly intermediaries. A startup called Etherealize—supported by Vitalik Buterin, Electric Capital, and Paradigm—aims to rebuild finance on Ethereum. Its co-founder Danny Ryan contends Ethereum’s combination of cryptoeconomic security, network neutrality, modular architecture (via Layer-2 rollups), and zero-knowledge privacy tools uniquely suit institutional needs. While critics point to Ethereum’s speed and cost, Ryan emphasizes security is scarce, and financial institutions must trust math, not centralized guarantees. In his view, Ethereum may not be the fastest, but it could be Wall Street’s safest bet.

Ethereum Doesn’t Need an Elevator Pitch — Its Plurality Defies It

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 01:28:18 +0000

Calls for Ethereum to distill itself into a single “elevator pitch” miss the essence of what it actually is: a multi-layered, general-purpose blockchain infrastructure whose very breadth makes it impossible to reduce to a slogan.

The Fallacy of the Elevator Pitch

There’s a recurring critique that Ethereum struggles to define itself in a quick, punchy way. The argument goes that investors, users, or policymakers need a simple, one-liner description.

But this framing misunderstands Ethereum’s very nature. When a technology is multi-purpose, multi-function, and universal, it resists reduction. That’s not a liability—it’s the hallmark of foundational infrastructure.

Solana is Not Ethereum, Not an Ethereum Killer, Not even Close

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 14:46:09 +0000

The narrative that “Solana is Ethereum but faster” is a misnomer in the blockchain industry. On the surface, both networks appear to offer smart contracts, decentralized applications, and a programmable base layer for cryptocurrencies. Yet, any comparison that reduces Ethereum and Solana to the same mold is dangerously superficial. Ethereum and Solana are not equivalents. They are built on fundamentally different philosophies, architectures, and trajectories.

While Ethereum is the world’s general-purpose blockchain infrastructure;- layered, modular, and expansive, Solana is a niche, monolithic chain with a very different approach to scalability and adoption. The two should not be conflated, despite Solana’s aggressive marketing and its supporters’ attempts to portray it as the “Ethereum killer.” In reality, Solana is not Ethereum, not even close by any credible measure.

Wall Street Needs a Blockchain. That Blockchain Is Ethereum.

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 17:19:07 +0000

Global finance is at a historic inflection point: legacy systems, built for paper-based processes, cannot keep pace with today’s 24/7 digital economy. Cross-border payments, securities settlement, and reconciliation introduce trillions in hidden costs through delays, trapped capital, and inefficiencies. Blockchain technology—specifically Ethereum—offers the optimal solution for next-generation financial infrastructure.

Ethereum enables real-time settlement, programmable compliance, and tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), unlocking liquidity and transforming previously static instruments into dynamic, composable assets. Institutions such as BlackRock, Fidelity, JPMorgan, and Apollo have already launched production-scale systems on Ethereum, demonstrating the shift from experimentation to adoption. Tokenized treasuries alone now exceed $5 billion in value, while stablecoin volumes on Ethereum surpass $150 billion.

Where Is The Capital in Crypto? A Look at App Capital, a Durable Metric of Blockchain Adoption

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:30:33 +0000

Defining App Capital

App Capital can be thought of as the economic mass of a blockchain’s application layer. It measures the sum of all circulating market capitalizations of tokens built on a chain, explicitly excluding the chain’s native token. This distinction is critical: by removing the reflexivity of native token valuations, App Capital provides a purer lens into how much real user capital is entrusted to applications on that chain.

The Ethereum Performance Paradox: Why One Metric Doesn’t Capture Blockchain Value

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 23:39:09 +0000

There’s an old saying in management: not everything that can be measured counts, and not everything that counts can be measured. Nowhere is this truer than in the debate around how to measure the performance of blockchains. In Ethereum’s case, the wrong choice of yardstick can obscure more than it reveals, and leave us debating the irrelevant at the expense of the essential.

The Limits of Measurement

Measurement only works when we compare factors that are truly common and comparable. If two organizations or technologies operate on different design principles, weighing them on a single narrowly defined factor creates a distorted picture. This is the paradox of performance: the more complex the system, the less likely that a single indicator captures its essence. What results is often a proxy war: one metric is elevated as a definitive measure, while others are ignored, leading to judgments that can be misleading, if not outright wrong.

L1 Validators vs. Ethereum L2’s: Cost Comparison for Chain Operators

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 20:24:03 +0000

This report compares the operational on-chain costs of launching an alternative Layer-1 (“alt-L1”) blockchain versus building an Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) with respect to validator rewards, data availability (DA), and zero-knowledge (ZK) proof costs. Alt-L1s support security via decentralized validators: they incur costs through token issuance and sharing transaction fees or MEV. These validator expenditures vary greatly depending on the chain’s token model and price. L2s, in contrast, inherit Ethereum’s settlement security; their major on-chain expense is paying for data posted to Ethereum (data availability) plus, if using ZK rollups, additional proof generation costs.

Resurgent Ethereum Could See Demand Outstrip Supply

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 18:55:00 +0000

Ethereum’s 10th anniversary has rekindled optimism around the network after a long adjustment phase. Confidence is returning as Ether (ETH) has rallied sharply, reaching new highs in August and outperforming Bitcoin. Many see this momentum as a possible spark for a broader altcoin cycle, with Ethereum leading the way.

A key driver has been the Prague + Electra (Pectra) upgrades, which eased technical bottlenecks and expanded staking capacity from 32 to 2048 ETH. Coupled with recent SEC guidance clarifying protocol staking, expectations have grown that staking could soon be integrated into Ethereum ETF structures.

The State of Onchain Yield: From Stablecoins to DeFi and Beyond

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 17:35:13 +0000

In “The State of Onchain Yield,” Galaxy maps out the evolving landscape of DeFi yield, assessing various yield-generating strategies across stablecoins, staking, restaking, lending, and structured products. It presents a ladder of yield, from zero-return safe assets to more engineered, higher-risk yield streams.

Starting with stablecoins: non-yield-bearing centralized and decentralized dollar-pegged tokens produce no native income for holders. Platform-dependent yield stablecoins share issuer or reserve income only when held in specific custodial venues. There is a large opportunity cost to this zero-yield baseline.

Understanding SCOPE: Synchronous Composability Protocol for Ethereum

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:36:38 +0000

What Is SCOPE?

SCOPE, short for the Synchronous Composability Protocol for Ethereum, is a proposed minimalist, push-based protocol that enables smart contracts on Ethereum’s mainnet (L1) and its rollups (L2s, L3s) to call each other synchronously and atomically—just like contracts on the same single chain would. This includes L1 ↔ L2 and L2 ↔ L2 interactions, all wrapped into one atomic scope, so the entire operation either completes or fails together. A minimal proof-of-concept has already been published. (Ethereum Research)

Kaiko Blockchain Ecosystem Ranking Q2 2025 Report

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:11:18 +0000

Kaiko’s Blockchain Ecosystem Ranking evaluates 15 major networks through a proprietary framework that blends both quantitative metrics and qualitative assessments. The methodology incorporates data sources such as on-chain activity, developer contributions, DeFi usage, regulatory disclosures, institutional involvement, and measures of network security. The goal is to provide a comprehensive view of blockchain ecosystems for diverse applications—ranging from the creation of financial products to the development of decentralized applications—helping stakeholders make more informed choices.

Ethereum (ETH): Overview and Potential Use Cases

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:40:58 +0000

Ethereum was introduced in 2013 through the vision of Vitalik Buterin and a group of seven co-founders who sought to extend the pioneering work of Bitcoin. While Bitcoin had established itself as the first decentralized, peer-to-peer digital money system, Ethereum’s founders aspired to build something more versatile—a blockchain that could be programmed to support applications beyond payments. More than a decade later, Ethereum has grown into the dominant smart contract platform and the world’s second largest digital asset by market capitalization.

Ethereum as the Amazon of Blockchain

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:07:53 +0000

When Amazon was founded in the mid-1990s, few could imagine that an online bookstore would evolve into one of the most powerful platforms in modern commerce. Amazon didn’t just scale a business; it built an ecosystem. By layering services, relentlessly focusing on user experience, and creating a compounding flywheel of supply and demand, Amazon transformed retail and infrastructure itself.

Ethereum’s story, while younger, mirrors this trajectory in striking ways. What began as a bold experiment, a “programmable platform” for decentralized applications, is steadily evolving into the universal, general-purpose blockchain with the strongest network effects in the industry. Just as Amazon moved from books to “the everything store” and then to a backbone of global cloud computing, Ethereum is progressing from smart contracts to the world’s settlement layer for money, assets, and digital property.

Weekly: Fed, ETH and new stablecoin L1s

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 01:23:06 +0000

ETH continues to lead while signs points to an altseason. ETH breaks to 2021 highs as top DATs add >2% supply alongside $2.27B in spot ETF inflows; Q2 13F patterns imply retail-led demand despite more institutional holders; BTC dominance down ~9% since July validates rotation, while Circle’s Arc and Stripe’s Tempo L1s target stablecoin rails where lasting share will be won by utility and cost advantage—not branding.

Read report | Coinbase Research

Underpriced Revolution: Ethereum 2021 vs. 2025

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:36:18 +0000

In August 2025, ETH is trading at levels not seen since December 2021. On paper, the price is the same. In reality, the Ethereum network is unrecognizable.

Three and a half years ago, Ethereum still ran on Proof-of-Work, burning energy instead of fees, with gas costs often pricing out users. Staking was a theoretical concept, not a functioning market. Institutional involvement was minimal, and market sentiment was driven largely by speculation.

Ethereum: Building the World Ledger

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 01:15:52 +0000

Since launching in 2015, Ethereum has evolved from an early blockchain experiment into the leading smart contract network powering a vast digital economy. Over the past decade, it has been the foundation for entirely new industries—decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs)—cementing its role as a core layer of infrastructure for global financial activity. This groundwork has paved the way for the next phase of large-scale adoption and technical scaling, with the potential for Ethereum to become, in Vitalik Buterin’s words, “a really valuable part of global infrastructure that helps make the internet and the economy a more free and open place.”

VanEck Crypto Monthly Recap for July 2025

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 17:43:33 +0000

July marked a pivotal turning point for digital assets in the U.S., as a coordinated regulatory push signaled a decisive shift toward embracing blockchain innovation within traditional finance. A suite of major developments—most notably the passage of the GENIUS and CLARITY Acts—catalyzed momentum for clearer crypto policy. The SEC’s approval of in-kind transactions for spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, alongside its launch of “Project Crypto,” represents a historic regulatory recalibration that aligns tokenization and crypto infrastructure with the broader financial system. Meanwhile, the White House’s comprehensive digital asset report and proposed generic ETP standards from major exchanges further indicated a unified institutional appetite to accelerate market access. Ethereum was the standout beneficiary of this evolving landscape. ETH rallied 50% over the month, buoyed by $4.7 billion in inflows and its growing role as the backbone for stablecoin issuance and real-world asset tokenization. Activity surged across Ethereum and Layer 2s like Arbitrum, with brokerages and exchanges piloting tokenized equities and funds, reflecting the migration of traditional financial instruments onto public blockchains. Altogether, July reflected a new regulatory-institutional alignment, narrowing the gap between crypto and traditional capital markets and positioning Ethereum at the center of this convergence.

July 2025: Ethereum Comes Alive

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 16:48:38 +0000

Ethereum surged nearly 50% in July 2025, driven by renewed investor interest in stablecoins, tokenized assets, and institutional use cases — areas where the leading smart contract network continues to distinguish itself.

The approval of the GENIUS Act marked a pivotal turning point for the stablecoin sector and the broader crypto market. While comprehensive legislation around market infrastructure is still working its way through Congress, regulatory agencies can move forward independently by advancing initiatives like permitting staking within regulated crypto investment vehicles.

Ultimate Guide to ETH as a Productive Asset: 10 Strategies

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 11:13:54 +0000

ETH has evolved into a productive financial instrument. It is a foundational pillar of decentralized finance (DeFi). Unlike static store-of-value assets, ETH can generate real yield across a variety of DeFi strategies, enabling capital-efficient, dynamic use within a growing on-chain economy.

Let’s explore how ETH becomes productive, the mechanisms by which it earns yield, examples of platforms enabling these strategies, and the expected returns associated with each.

1. Staking: Ethereum’s Native Yield

Staking ETH is the most direct way to make it productive. Since Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) in 2022, ETH holders can lock their tokens to secure the network and earn rewards.

Bitcoin Needs Its Queen: ETH’s Evolution into a Scarce, Productive, and Institutional Reserve Asset

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 10:02:54 +0000

Why ETH Is the Reserve Asset of the Onchain Economy.

Ethereum is rapidly evolving from a misunderstood digital asset into a scarce, programmable reserve that underpins an increasingly institutionalized on-chain economy.

Its unique monetary design projects long-term scarcity: even under maximum staking conditions, ETH’s annual inflation remains capped around 1.52%, with projections trending toward 0.89% by the year 2125. This places it well below the historical U.S. M2 money supply growth rate of 6.36%, and even more conservative than gold’s supply expansion—making ETH a compelling store-of-value candidate.

Why Ethereum is Roaring

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 09:56:21 +0000

Ben Lilly explains that Ethereum soared recently due to a major, unannounced accumulation of ETH by a publicly traded company—SharpLink Gaming. The Ethereum Foundation sold 10,000 ETH via an OTC transaction on July 11, which typically signals a market peak. But this sale went entirely off exchange to SharpLink, which already held over 176,000 ETH and raised capital to keep growing its treasury—part of a newly emergent trend called Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs).

ETH as a Productive Treasury Asset

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 18:28:49 +0000

As Ethereum approaches its 20-year milestone, it is entering a transformative phase marked by accelerating institutional interest. Now widely regarded as the most decentralized and secure programmable blockchain, Ethereum is becoming the foundational infrastructure for a new financial era. Much like Bitcoin’s ascent as digital gold, ETH is gaining recognition as a scarce, high-utility asset—often described as “digital oil.”

In 2025 alone, more than 1.7 million ETH have been allocated to long-term institutional holdings, a trend that reflects growing confidence in ETH as a core reserve asset. ETH is not just a store of value—it’s a productive digital commodity. With staking, institutions gain access to native yield opportunities that resemble the characteristics of a next-generation internet bond.

Ethereum is Trustware: The Industrialization of Trust

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 12:48:44 +0000

The report presents an investment case for Ethereum (ETH) as a foundational provider of digital trust in the evolving global economy, emphasizing its potential to generate significant economic value through its trustware infrastructure.

Ethereum as the Apex Provider of Trust

Ethereum is evolving into a critical infrastructure for digital trust, termed “Trustware,” which is essential for the digital economy.

Ethereum has grown from a smart contract platform to a global standard for digital trust.
The report projects ETH’s value could reach $4,900 by 2025 and $15,800 by 2028.
The global trust infrastructure costs approximately $9.3 trillion annually, with Ethereum providing equivalent or superior trust guarantees.

The Industrialization of Trust Explained

Beyond Bitcoin: ETH as a Corporate Treasury Asset

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 10:20:46 +0000

Galaxy highlights how four U.S.-listed companies were the first to adopt Ethereum (ETH) reserves on their balance sheets. Following MicroStrategy’s success with Bitcoin, these firms used equity raises to amass ETH holdings, signaling a new wave of corporate treasury diversification.

In particular, SharpLink Gaming (NASDAQ: SBET) stands out. Funded by a $425 million PIPE and additional at-the-market offerings, the company acquired over 215,634 ETH and staked the full amount—earning 322 ETH within its first month. This not only generates yield but also bolsters Ethereum’s network security.

The Ethereum Investment (ETH) Report Q2 2025

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 14:48:23 +0000

A data-only report + dashboards covering ETH and the Ethereum Ecosystem. No noise. No hype. Just fundamentals, core KPIs, and qtr-to-qtr explanation.

Read pdf Report | Link to DeFi Report

Blockchains as Emerging Economies

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 09:14:24 +0000

This report by Fidelity Investments introduces a fundamentals-based framework for evaluating digital assets and constructing portfolios, aimed at asset allocators and financial advisors. Cryptocurrencies are defined as native currencies of blockchain networks, functioning as the primary unit of account and medium of exchange within their respective digital economies. Drawing parallels with traditional macroeconomics, the value of these digital currencies is driven by demand for access to network services and their resilience against theft, network failure, or inflationary policies.

Beyond Stablecoins: The Case for Ethereum

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 08:56:39 +0000

Global demand for U.S. dollars isn’t shrinking—it’s accelerating. Despite the media narrative around de-dollarization, the more impactful trend is the explosive rise in dollar access via stablecoins. Today, over 4 billion people and countless businesses are tapping into digital dollars, marking one of the most significant expansions of the dollar’s global footprint in modern history.

This shift presents a massive opportunity for Ethereum. The stablecoin market has surged more than 60-fold since 2020, now exceeding $200 billion. But holding digital dollars is only the beginning. Users around the world increasingly seek yield, access to investment tools, and broader financial services—needs that traditional financial systems are largely unable to meet due to regulatory and logistical limitations.

Trust Is the Final Blockchain Frontier

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 10:23:03 +0000

Speed, features, and promises can be copied—trust cannot. It’s earned, not declared. Ethereum is proof that time matters.

In the evolution of blockchain technology, each phase has brought forth a defining feature, only to be replicated, commoditized, and eventually trivialized. First came money and the transmission of value. Bitcoin proved that digital scarcity and decentralized consensus could produce a functional currency outside government control. Naturally, this idea was copied. Every blockchain that followed claimed to move money faster, cheaper, or more cleverly.

Decentralization is Not an Aesthetic

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 12:07:39 +0000

*A Call to Action for Ethereum Builders to Uphold Credible Neutrality, Privacy, and Resilience
*Decentralization is not an aesthetic. It’s not a buzzword to sprinkle into marketing decks or a badge of honor for Layer 1s. It’s a set of design constraints that, when respected, give users meaningful freedom, not just the illusion of it. As Ethereum matures and mainstream attention intensifies, we are at a turning point. Either we reinforce our commitment to credible neutrality, privacy, and resilience, or we quietly slide into recreating the centralized structures we once set out to escape.

Ethereum Platform vs. ETH the Digital Asset: Understanding the Distinction

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 09:34:54 +0000

Ethereum is often referred to as a unified entity in headlines and casual conversation. Still, in reality, it encompasses two distinct components: Ethereum the platform (or protocol), and ETH the digital asset (or native token). While deeply intertwined, these two elements serve different purposes and must be understood separately to appreciate Ethereum’s full economic, technological, and strategic potential. This note unpacks the key differences between Ethereum and ETH, outlining their roles, relationships, and significance in the blockchain ecosystem.

Understanding EIP-7732: Parallelization and Deterministic Execution in Ethereum

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 10:09:27 +0000

EIP-7732 proposes a significant architectural change to Ethereum by decoupling transaction ordering from execution to enable safe, deterministic parallel execution. Today, Ethereum processes transactions sequentially, limiting scalability. EIP-7732 introduces a new role—the SKR prover—who, after the block is built and transactions are ordered, commits to a valid execution trace. This allows validators to re-execute transactions in parallel, drastically improving performance while maintaining consensus integrity.

The proposal aligns with Ethereum’s broader modular design goals and complements Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS). It supports rollup scalability by ensuring deterministic transaction ordering, reduces MEV-related risks, and enhances validator efficiency. Long-term, it also lays the groundwork for execution sharding.

Monetary Sovereignty and Ethereum: Why ETH Must Be the Currency of Its Realm

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 03:43:15 +0000

In the architecture of any sovereign system—whether a nation-state or a decentralized protocol—monetary control is foundational. Just as a country requires a strong, widely accepted currency to maintain economic sovereignty and national power, a blockchain ecosystem relies on its native utility token to secure its infrastructure, incentivize participation, and align incentives. For Ethereum, this token is ETH, and it must remain central to the economy of both Ethereum Layer 1 (L1) and its associated Layer 2 (L2) networks. When L2s begin to accept or promote alternative tokens as gas, they risk undermining Ethereum’s economic integrity, security model, and long-term alignment—potentially setting a course for secession from the Ethereum ecosystem altogether.

Why Ethereum May Still Be the Smartest Play in Digital Assets

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 09:19:03 +0000

Ethereum remains the leading decentralized, permissionless computational layer, with ETH as its native currency. As the birthplace of DeFi, it boasts over $62 billion locked across decentralized finance—over 55% of the total DeFi market—showcasing unparalleled ecosystem strength.

Institutional confidence surged after the US approved spot Ethereum ETFs, positioning ETH alongside mainstream investable assets. It also controls around 59% of the tokenization market, underscoring its dominance across blockchain use cases.

Charting 2025’s landscape, Ethereum has delivered sustained cash flow, growing institutional adoption, and a vibrant app ecosystem—complementing Bitcoin in modern digital portfolios. Key catalysts included the successful “Pectra” upgrade, hedge funds covering short ETH positions, and a $425 million accumulation plan by SharpLink Gaming—triggers for a 40.8% rally in May, the largest monthly gain since November 2024.

Web3SOC: A Transparency Framework for Ethereum’s Institutional Maturity

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 11:25:32 +0000

As decentralized finance (DeFi) matures and Ethereum continues to lead as the default settlement layer for on-chain applications, the ecosystem faces an urgent need for better transparency, operational clarity, and governance standards. The lack of consistent disclosures around smart contract upgradeability, key management, and treasury control could present a major hurdle for institutional adoption and user trust. To address this, leading Ethereum ecosystem builders have launched Web3SOC (Web3 System and Organizational Controls) — a standardized framework inspired by traditional SOC audit practices but tailored for decentralized systems.

Ethereum’s Success: Creating Category and Winning the Mindshare Race

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 11:05:55 +0000

An exploration of how strategic branding and adherence to fundamental marketing principles have secured Ethereum’s position as the industry’s leader.

In the battle of blockchains, conversations often orbit around transactions per second, fees, uptime, or some new application trend. Yet, in the race for dominance, Ethereum has proven that there’s a more powerful force than raw performance: mindshare and brand power.

Not surprisingly, Ethereum has mastered not just technology but also branding. And branding isn’t about logos or slogans; it’s about how ecosystems, products, and platforms are perceived, remembered, and chosen.

Rethinking Blockchain Valuation for the Age of Decentralized Infrastructure

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 15:03:04 +0000

Traditional metrics fail to capture what blockchains really are. A new paradigm is needed—one rooted in usage, monetary flows, public utility, and economic footprint.

Valuing blockchains today is like trying to price the internet before we understood what websites were. In the early days of the web, analysts applied familiar but flawed frameworks, eyeballs, banner ad revenue, burn rates, only to discover later that none of these captured what truly drove value. We are in a similar moment with blockchains: despite their economic and social significance, there is no widely accepted or standardized model for how they should be valued.

The Stablecoin Reckoning

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 11:55:56 +0000

Why Walmart, Not JPMorgan, Will Lead the Next Payments Revolution

We are entering the era of daily headlines about everyone—and their mother—issuing a stablecoin.

Most will be vaporware. Some won’t. Among the credible ones, many will stall out. A few will quietly change everything.

Here’s the tell: look at who’s building it. If it’s being driven by the victims of the traditional payments industry, it’s worth watching. If the beneficiaries are pushing it, it’s likely just noise.

Ethereum Can’t Be Valued on Discounted Cash Flow

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:10:59 +0000

*Ethereum Is Not a Company, It’s the Backbone of a New Digital Economy
*The narrative that Ethereum should be valued like a tech company using metrics like transaction fees and discounted cash flow (DCF) is not only misguided, it fundamentally misrepresents what Ethereum is and how it operates. Ethereum is not a SaaS business, nor should it be evaluated like one. Instead, Ethereum is best understood as a decentralized commodity network, an open, neutral infrastructure layer powering a global onchain economy. Attempting to jam Ethereum into a DCF framework is not just analytically incorrect, it’s strategically self-defeating.

The Bull Case for ETH Paper

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 08:51:12 +0000

The global financial landscape is undergoing a historic shift as traditional assets increasingly become digitized and move onto blockchain infrastructure. This transition—from a fragmented, partially digital system to one that is fully digital, interoperable, and composable—necessitates a secure and neutral global settlement layer. Ethereum has emerged as the backbone of this transformation.

Institutional engagement with Ethereum is growing rapidly, fueled by favorable regulatory momentum in the U.S. and a broader acceptance of digital assets within mainstream investment strategies. Just as Bitcoin established itself over 15 years as a sovereign-resistant store of value — now widely acknowledged as digital gold — Ethereum expands that legacy by enabling not just the storage of value, but its seamless movement, programmability, and trustless coordination on a global scale.

Etherealize’s Bull Case for ETH

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 08:40:39 +0000

Wall Street understands the value of BTC. Here’s how institutions should think about the opportunity to own ETH.

ETH is positioning itself as a macro-level reserve asset—scarce, yield-generating, and foundational to the architecture of tomorrow’s financial infrastructure.

The global financial system is undergoing a profound digital shift. As trillions of dollars in money-market funds, government bonds, corporate credit, equities, real estate titles, and even AI-native intellectual property transition to blockchain-based rails, there’s an increasing demand for a neutral, programmable base layer to support it all. Bitcoin demonstrated that a decentralized ledger can store value securely and transparently without central intermediaries. Ethereum builds on that innovation, enabling not just value storage but programmable value transfer and the creation of trustless financial applications.

The Roll of Network Effects: Ethereum’s Edge Over Solana

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:55:27 +0000

The VHS vs. Betamax format war of the late 20th century offers a surprisingly apt historical lens through which to view today’s situation between Ethereum and Solana, the two most prominent smart contract platforms vying for dominance in the decentralized future. Though Solana may boast technical superiority in isolated benchmarks,- just as Betamax once claimed higher video quality, the long-term winners in technological revolutions tend to be shaped not by raw performance alone, but by broader forces: openness, community adoption, network effects, and the ability to evolve as a platform. Ethereum, like VHS, is winning because of these dynamics, and understanding this parallel helps explain why.

The Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security Project

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:39:12 +0000

The Trillion Dollar Security (1TS) initiative represents a broad, collaborative push to enhance Ethereum’s overall security. This document marks the project’s inaugural output. Over the past month, we’ve collected insights from a diverse range of stakeholders—users, developers, security professionals, and institutional participants—to better understand the most pressing security challenges and areas needing attention. We’re grateful to the many individuals and organizations who contributed their perspectives.

This report consolidates what we’ve learned across six key domains:

Don’t Let the Cult of Price Hold Crypto Back

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:30:17 +0000

*Focusing solely on crypto prices masks the real progress taking place on blockchains like Ethereum
*William Mougayar, founder of the Ethereum Market Research Centre, emphasizes that the worth of a cryptocurrency should be measured by how it’s used and adopted—not just its market price. While Bitcoin is frequently seen through the lens of speculation, Ethereum derives much of its value from the utility it provides and the practical use cases it supports. Mougayar also suggests that the two networks could benefit from greater synergy, with Bitcoin’s deep liquidity complementing Ethereum’s robust decentralized finance ecosystem.

The Ethereum Way: What Are Ethereum’s Core Values? – EMRC

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:00:16 +0000

Ethereum is more than a blockchain protocol, it is a living ecosystem governed by a distinct set of values. These values shape Ethereum’s culture, its community’s behavior, and its strategic trajectory as the world’s most credibly neutral settlement layer. Below are 10 core values that define Ethereum’s ethos across its technical design, community norms, developer incentives, and institutional appeal.

1. Credible Neutrality

Ethereum is built to be an impartial infrastructure, free from centralized control, favoritism, or coercion. This foundational value ensures Ethereum can serve as a trustless global platform for any actor: individual, enterprise, or nation-state. Neutrality enables Ethereum to be the internet’s financial base layer with confidence in fairness and permanence.

Transforming Global Payments: The Role of Tokenized Money & Funds in Cross-Border Transactions – Visa

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 14:08:50 +0000

Visa began actively exploring asset tokenization in 2021, initiating collaborations with over 40 central banks worldwide, including involvement in Brazil’s Drex Pilot and Singapore’s Global CBDC Challenge. In 2022, Visa was recognized with the “Best Ecosystem” award by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) for its contributions to the Global CBDC Fast Track Programme. Visa also took part in Phase 1 of HKMA’s e-HKD Pilot Programme, working alongside major banks like HSBC and Hang Seng Bank to test the use of tokenized deposits in property transactions and acquirer-merchant settlements. Serving as the technology provider, Visa introduced its Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), a suite of APIs that enables financial institutions to mint, burn, and transfer digital tokens across both permissioned and public blockchain networks.

Touring the Ethereum World in 102 Advanced Dashboards

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 17:42:33 +0000

A Summary of 102 Ethereum Dashboards Across the Ecosystem

The Ethereum ecosystem thrives on transparency and innovation, as displayed by a diverse array of dashboards that provide critical insights into its infrastructure, decentralized finance (DeFi), staking, tokenization capabilities, scaling, transactions, and more.[

Below, we highlight 102 curated dashboards from Ethereum Dashboards](https://ethereumdashboards.com/), maintained and curated by Ethereum developer Hanniabu. These tools offer unique data and visualizations to empower users, developers, and stakeholders to follow the particular area of interest. Below, we summarize each dashboard’s functionality, highlighting how they each contribute to highlighting Ethereum’s vibrant ecosystem.

Stop Comparing Solana to Ethereum

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:21:28 +0000

There are fundamental differences that separate Ethereum’s long game from Solana’s shortcut strategy

While Ethereum and Solana may both claim to be platforms for the future of decentralized applications, beneath the surface, their visions couldn’t be more divergent. They have emerged as ideological and architectural opposites. One is a battle-tested, community-led protocol built on resilience and neutrality. The other is a speed-maximized experiment betting on centralization. This is a clash of visions, not a contest of features.

Beyond Bitcoin’s ‘Number Goes Up’

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 11:23:34 +0000

*How Ethereum Helps BTC Escape Its Static Holding Status
*
The relentless fixation on price within the cryptocurrency sphere often overshadows the profound technological and societal shifts these digital assets represent. To reduce cryptocurrency solely to “number goes up” is akin to evaluating Apple solely on its stock price, disregarding the revolutionary impact of the iPhone or the vast ecosystem of services it fostered. Similarly, focusing solely on Bitcoin’s price appreciation, as advocated by Michael Saylor’s “Saylorism,” neglects the diverse applications and underlying innovations driving the broader crypto landscape, particularly the contrasting approach of Ethereum. While price undeniably plays a role in market dynamics, true and sustainable value in the digital asset space, much like in traditional markets, stems from utility, adoption, and the tangible benefits these technologies offer.

Ethereum INTEROPERABILITY: Connecting the L1, L2s and Beyond – EMRC

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 21:08:48 +0000

Ethereum continues to advance its transformation, moving towards a modular architecture designed for global scalability. Central to this evolution is the imperative of interoperability, particularly between the Ethereum Layer 1 (L1), its burgeoning ecosystem of Layer 2 (L2) solutions, and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment in general. This report explores Ethereum’s current diversity, examines the concerted efforts by the Ethereum Foundation (EF) and key industry players to foster seamless connectivity, and outlines the strategic long-term benefits of these initiatives for the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

Onchain Value: Stablecoins Now Drive Over ⅓ of DeFi Revenue – Keyrock

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 03:43:39 +0000

Stablecoins have become the financial backbone of DeFi, playing a central role not just in transferring value, but in powering leverage loops, yield strategies, and protocol revenues. This report maps their growing economic impact across leading DeFi protocols and chains. Stablecoin-driven revenue is rebounding sharply—from a low of 4.7% in June 2024 to 30.8% year-to-date—underscoring their resurgence in bull markets, not just bearish ones. Lending protocols remain the dominant recipients of this revenue (15%), though DEXes are narrowing the gap (11%).

Ethereum’s Dominance in the RWA Market: Who’s Next in Line? – Tiger

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 17:40:10 +0000

*Exploring Structural Challenges and the Rise of New Tokenization Platforms
*Ethereum currently leads the real-world asset (RWA) market, thanks to its first-mover advantage, track record of institutional experimentation, deep on-chain liquidity, and decentralized infrastructure. However, newer blockchains—both general-purpose platforms with lower fees and faster throughput, as well as RWA-specialized chains built for compliance—are emerging to address Ethereum’s cost and performance limitations. These challengers are positioning themselves as next-generation infrastructure by emphasizing technical scalability and native regulatory alignment. Ultimately, the next phase of RWA growth will be driven by the platform that can combine regulatory compatibility, a robust service ecosystem tailored to real-world assets, and sustained on-chain liquidity.

American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: From Blueprint to a Functional Framework

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 14:20:54 +0000

*Testimony of Vivek Raman Co-Founder and CEO, Etherealize Before the United States House Committee on Financial Services
*In his June 4, 2025 testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, Vivek Raman, CEO and co-founder of Etherealize, advocated for the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, emphasizing the necessity of clear regulatory frameworks in the digital asset sector. Drawing from his decade-long experience in traditional finance, Raman highlighted Ethereum as a prime example of decentralization and innovation, noting its open and fair launch and its evolution into a mature blockchain system not controlled by any single entity.

Ethereum 2025: Usage, dominance, and role in a portfolio – DAS

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 20:06:00 +0000

Ethereum, often referred to as the “world computer,” has become a fundamental part of the crypto ecosystem since its launch in 2015. With the introduction of smart contracts, the network revolutionized blockchain technology and enabled the development of decentralized applications.

Read PDF report | Digital Asset Solutions Research

The Hardness That Defines Ethereum

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 03:58:30 +0000

Ethereum’s distinctive property is hardness.

We usually talk about Ethereum’s core properties as things like “decentralized trust”, censorship resistance, digital property rights, or credible neutrality.

All of these depend on a common property: that Ethereum will behave reliably, and that it can make credible commitments about the future:

That your funds will remain accessible to you even if you don’t touch them for years
That your smart contract will execute as written
That a transaction you send today or a year from now cannot be censored
That your private transaction will remain private
That Ethereum itself will not be captured, and will remain credibly neutral

Hardness is the root property that enables all of them. It is the irreducible “bit” of trust, the basic capability of a system to make credible claims about future behaviour.

Comparing Ethereum’s MEV-Boost Model to Jito-Solana- EMRC Research Note

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 03:56:25 +0000

How blockchain networks manage Miner/Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is more than technical nuances. A comparison reveals deep philosophical, economic, and political distinctions about whom these systems are built to serve. Ethereum and Solana have developed fundamentally different MEV architectures: Ethereum’s modular and permissionless MEV-Boost model and Solana’s vertically integrated Jito ecosystem. Both offer trade-offs, but their implications for decentralization, economic power concentration, and long-term resiliency diverge dramatically.

This research note compares the two models at a high level, focusing on the decentralization of infrastructure, control over transaction flow, user exposure, validator incentives, and systemic resilience. It argues that while Solana’s Jito-driven model currently offers efficiency and convenience, Ethereum’s MEV-Boost architecture provides a more future-proof, pluralistic, and censorship-resistant foundation, especially in a world where policy and public scrutiny of blockchain fairness and neutrality are intensifying.

Ethereum’s Fusaka Upgrade: Advancing Scalability, Efficiency, and Validator Coordination – EMRC

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 23:43:04 +0000

Ethereum, the world’s leading smart contract platform, is poised for a significant transformation with its upcoming Fusaka upgrade, anticipated in late 2025. Building upon the foundations laid by previous upgrades like Pectra, Fusaka aims to address critical challenges in scalability, efficiency, and validator coordination. This research note delves into the key components of the Fusaka upgrade, exploring their implications for Ethereum’s future in the competitive blockchain landscape.

READ pdf

ETH in Motion

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 03:53:04 +0000

How ETH’s Velocity Powers a Living, Breathing, Multilayered Economy

Ever wonder how “alive” the Ethereum network truly is? It’s not just about the number of ETH in existence, but how actively that ETH is being used within its digital ecosystem. This is where the concept of velocity comes in.

Think of it like the economy of a bustling city. A high velocity of money means cash is constantly changing hands, fueling businesses and growth. Similarly, the velocity of ETH measures how frequently Ether moves within the Ethereum landscape. Whether it’s being traded on decentralized exchanges, used to interact with smart contracts, paid as gas fees, staked to secure the network, or bridged across different layers, each movement contributes to its velocity.

ETH Beyond the Treasury

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 03:57:14 +0000

ETH as Institutional Onchain Capital Infrastructure

Ethereum has entered a new chapter — not just as an asset, but as infrastructure. While much of the attention in institutional circles has focused on adding ETH to treasury holdings, the real paradigm shift lies ahead: deploying ETH onchain through DeFi protocols to generate sustainable, transparent returns. This transformation is not merely financial; it is architectural. It reshapes ETH from a passive store of value into an active financial operating system.

Stablecoin Payments from the Ground Up – Artemis, Castle Island Ventures & Dragonfly

Fri, 30 May 2025 03:39:06 +0000

A survey of 20 stablecoin payment companies, supplemented by estimates from 11 more, revealed $94.2 billion in settled payments between January 2023 and February 2025, annualizing at $72.3 billion as of February 2025. B2B payments lead at a $36 billion run rate, followed by P2P ($18 billion), card-linked ($13.2 billion), B2C ($3.3 billion), and prefunding ($2.5 billion), with most sectors showing rapid growth. Tether’s USDT dominates with 90% market share, and Tron is the most used blockchain by volume, followed by Ethereum.

Understanding FOCIL – EMRC

Fri, 30 May 2025 03:22:11 +0000

FOCIL (Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists) is a proposed Ethereum upgrade (EIP-7805) that enhances censorship resistance by requiring validators to enforce the inclusion of valid transactions. It counters the growing centralization of block builders by enabling randomly selected validator committees to publish inclusion lists that proposers must honor, or risk block rejection. This ensures fair transaction processing and upholds Ethereum’s neutrality. Currently under development and testing across major clients, FOCIL is expected to be a candidate for Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade in 2026. If implemented, it will strengthen Ethereum’s core values of openness, decentralization, and trust in high-value, censorship-resistant infrastructure.

PeerDAS: Ethereum’s Data Availability Breakthrough – EMRC

Thu, 29 May 2025 23:00:15 +0000

PeerDAS (Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling) represents a major advancement in Ethereum’s ongoing scalability roadmap. It enables decentralized nodes, including lightweight clients, to verify that block data is available without downloading the entire dataset. This innovation addresses one of Ethereum’s most pressing bottlenecks: scalable and secure data availability. As Ethereum scales through rollups and Layer 2s, PeerDAS provides a trustless and bandwidth-efficient mechanism to ensure that the data behind each block can be retrieved by the network. PeerDAS sets the stage for full Danksharding and transforms Ethereum into a truly modular blockchain, strengthening its competitiveness against high-throughput monolithic chains like Solana and Sui.

The State of Ethereum – Grayscale

Thu, 29 May 2025 16:46:27 +0000

The potential launch of spot Ethereum ETFs is expected to introduce a wider audience to smart contracts and decentralized applications, highlighting Ethereum’s foundational role in transforming digital commerce. As the largest smart contract platform by market cap and user base, Ethereum is scaling through a modular architecture with growing Layer 2 activity. To stay competitive, it must expand its user base and fee revenue. Grayscale Research estimates that demand for Ethereum ETFs will reach 25–30% of that seen for Bitcoin ETFs, though a large share of ETH—such as staked assets—will likely remain unavailable for ETF inclusion. While Ethereum’s current valuation may limit near-term price upside compared to Bitcoin’s ETF-driven rally in early 2024, the long-term outlook remains strong. Ethereum’s leadership in users, applications, and protocol development positions it to benefit from growing institutional access and continued adoption of decentralized technologies.

In Defense of Chain Neutrality

Thu, 29 May 2025 03:18:38 +0000

As “net neutrality” defined the ethos of an open internet, “chain neutrality” must now define the integrity of blockchains. It demands complete decentralization—technically and operationally—rejecting misleading narratives like “degrees of decentralization.” Chains that claim to be “decentralized enough” often mask centralized control over validators, upgrades, and governance, jeopardizing trust. True neutrality requires radical transparency and censorship resistance. Trust in blockchain is binary: either it’s decentralized or it isn’t. Chain neutrality is not a convenience—it’s a principle. Without it, blockchains devolve into semi-private systems masquerading as open infrastructure. The industry must adopt chain neutrality as the foundational standard for securing value.

Finance is ready for a blockchain reset – Financial Times

Wed, 28 May 2025 03:36:19 +0000

The modern financial system is facing significant challenges, including globalization, fragile institutions, inflation, and debt. The current system is experiencing architectural fatigue, necessitating a restructuring. Blockchain-based systems offer a potential solution by enabling the movement of value and management of digital assets without traditional intermediaries. These systems use decentralized networks and cryptography to ensure transaction veracity and tamper-proof history. Institutions are already adopting blockchain for tokenized assets, highlighting its operational viability and potential to create interoperable financial infrastructure.

The After-Effects of Ethereum’s PECTRA Upgrade – Coin Metrics

Tue, 27 May 2025 03:51:10 +0000

Assessing Pectra’s impact on Ethereum staking and Layer-2 scalability

Author Tanay Ved at Coin Metrics

Since going live on May 7, Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade has delivered meaningful structural improvements, most notably through EIP-7251, which raised the validator max effective balance from 32 to 2,048 ETH, and EIP-7691, which doubled blob space to better support Layer-2 scaling. In the weeks following the upgrade, more than 11,000 validators have consolidated, shrinking the active validator set by approximately 16,000 while keeping total staked ETH stable and increasing the average stake per validator to around 32.4 ETH. Blob activity has risen, with the number of blobs posted to Ethereum growing from about 21,000 to 28,000, although rollup usage still trails the new target capacity of six blobs per block. As blobspace costs have dropped, Layer-2 transaction volumes have climbed, driven by cheaper execution. However, total blob fees remain close to zero, indicating that further fee increases—and full utilization of blobspace—will depend on higher data demand from rollups.

Understanding the PECTRA Upgrade – EMRC

Sat, 24 May 2025 03:44:35 +0000

On May 7, 2025, Ethereum implemented the Pectra upgrade, its most significant overhaul since the 2022 Merge. This upgrade amalgamated the Prague (execution layer) and Electra (consensus layer) enhancements, introducing 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) aimed at bolstering scalability, user experience, and validator operations. Key features include advanced account abstraction via EIP-7702, increased validator staking limits through EIP-7251, and improved data throughput with EIP-7691. These developments position Ethereum to better compete with emerging Layer 1 platforms and support the growing Layer 2 ecosystem.

Can You Be Half a Gangster?

Sat, 24 May 2025 03:23:00 +0000

Solana’s Identity Crisis in a World of Extremes

This is the main question facing Solana today. Can a blockchain straddle the line between radical decentralization and performance-maximized centralization? Can it credibly present itself as financial infrastructure while occasionally crashing, subsidizing its validators, and pretending to be something it’s not?

Solana currently finds itself caught between two uncompromising extremes. On one side are fully centralized, hyper-optimized systems like Hyperliquid and the upcoming MegaETH, platforms that make no claims to decentralization but offer blistering throughput and instant user experiences. Hyperliquid is already live with 200,000 transactions per second (TPS), dwarfing Solana’s current 700 TPS. On the other end of the spectrum lies Ethereum, a platform that refuses to compromise on credible neutrality, even at the cost of user experience. Ethereum’s slow, deliberate march toward scalability through rollups and modular architecture prioritizes long-term trust, censorship resistance, and permissionless participation, values Solana claims to uphold, but often doesn’t deliver on.

The State of Ethereum Blobs and Blob Market Post-Pectra – Galaxy

Thu, 15 May 2025 03:42:34 +0000

Ethereum’s recent Pectra upgrade, which went live on May 7, 2025, included EIP-7691, increasing the target and maximum blobs per block from 3/6 to 6/9 respectively. This raised the daily blob data capacity from approximately 5.5GB to 8.15GB, impacting the blob market, rollups, and validators. Post-Pectra, daily blob purchases by rollups rose to about 25,600, yet the average blobs per block remain below the new target, making blob costs virtually free for the first time since mid-April 2025. Consequently, the ETH burned from rollup data posting has significantly decreased.

More Than a Blockchain: The Enterprise-Grade Protocol with Consumer-Scale Trust – EMRC

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 03:51:57 +0000

Ethereum is the core infrastructure of Web3, transcending the definition of a mere blockchain. This primer highlights its unique strengths: an infinitely scalable architecture through a modular Layer 2 ecosystem, a decentralized and robust governance model fostering continuous innovation, and growing institutional trust evidenced by its adoption in digital finance and tokenized assets. The platform benefits from the largest and most engaged developer community, driving its evolution. Furthermore, its native asset, ETH, is evolving into “ultrasound money” with deflationary properties. Ethereum’s integration of zero-knowledge technology provides a cutting-edge advantage in privacy and scalability. Finally, its uninterrupted uptime positions it as a reliable settlement layer, solidifying its role as the foundational financial operating system for the internet.

Pectra and Fusaka Upgrades: What does it mean for Ethereum? – Binance

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 14:32:51 +0000

The upcoming Pectra and Fusaka upgrades are designed to enhance Ethereum’s role as a scalable Layer 2 (L2) settlement and data availability layer, with Pectra expected in May 2025 and Fusaka later that year. These upgrades focus on performance and usability improvements rather than on reinforcing ETH’s monetary premium or censorship resistance.

Pectra introduces three major enhancements: EIP-7251 will increase the maximum effective balance per validator from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, helping to reduce network strain caused by over one million validators; EIP-7691 will expand blob capacity to accommodate more data at low cost; and EIP-7702 will enable native smart contract wallet capabilities for user accounts, paving the way for bundled transactions and social recovery.

The Evolving Relationship Between Ethereum and Its Layer-2s – Coin Metrics

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 03:46:02 +0000

Author Tanay Ved via Coin Metrics

*A data-driven look at how Ethereum’s Layer-2 growth is reshaping network economics and ETH’s value accrual.
*Ethereum’s shift toward a Layer-2-centric scaling model has expanded its ecosystem but reduced mainnet transaction demand, altering its economic dynamics. The Dencun upgrade introduced blobspace, significantly lowering L2 settlement costs and enabling highly profitable rollups like Base, which sparked debate over whether L2s benefit or extract value from Ethereum. As ETH’s returns increasingly hinge on network fundamentals—such as fees and token burn—its recent underperformance signals market unease over weakening value accrual. Upcoming upgrades like Pectra aim to double blob capacity, boost both L1 and L2 demand, and reestablish Ethereum’s long-term value proposition across its modular infrastructure.

Blockspace & Blobspace: a tale of two Ethereum products by cyber.Fund

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 03:36:59 +0000

Authors Antero Eloranta, Dogan Alpaslan, Artem Kotelskiy from cyber.Fund
In-depth analysis of Ethereum’s evolving data architecture, focusing on the introduction of ‘blobspace’ alongside traditional ‘blockspace’. This development, part of the Dencun upgrade and EIP-4844, aims to enhance scalability and reduce transaction costs, particularly benefiting Layer 2 (L2) rollups.

Key Insights:

Ethereum L1 Blockspace: The report examines the supply and demand dynamics of Ethereum’s Layer 1 (L1) blockspace, highlighting how transaction fees, determined by gas usage, influence network congestion and validator incentives.
Introduction of Blobspace: ‘Blobspace’ is introduced as a new data layer designed for rollups to post data more efficiently. Blobs offer temporary data storage, reducing the need for permanent on-chain data, thereby lowering costs and improving scalability.
Economic Implications: The addition of blobspace creates a separate market for data availability, impacting gas dynamics and transaction fees. This separation allows for more efficient resource allocation between L1 and L2 solutions.
L2 Blockspace Economics: The report also delves into the economics of L2 blockspace, discussing how rollups interact with both blockspace and blobspace, and how these interactions affect overall network efficiency and scalability.

Overall, the report underscores Ethereum’s strategic shift towards a modular architecture, enhancing scalability and efficiency through the integration of blobspace.

Ethereum: The OG Smart Contract Blockchain – Grayscale

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 17:41:00 +0000

Smart contract platforms are the foundational infrastructure for decentralized applications and blockchain-based financial systems, playing a key role in reshaping global commerce and markets. Grayscale Research expects adoption of these platforms to accelerate in the next 1–2 years, driven in part by upcoming U.S. regulatory developments. Ethereum remains the leading smart contract platform, based on market capitalization, ecosystem size, developer activity, and value of on-chain assets. Ethereum’s commitment to decentralization, security, and neutrality positions it well for long-term dominance. These qualities make Ether a critical asset in diversified crypto portfolios. Despite uncertainties around long-term fee structures and competitive pressures, Grayscale projects that Ethereum could grow its total network fees from an annualized $1.7 billion to over $20 billion by successfully scaling its infrastructure and preserving its pricing power.

ETH: A Store of Value With Cash Flow

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:50:55 +0000

ETH is a unique, and differentiated, digital store of value from BTC. ETH has lower net issuance, a native staking yield (uncorrelated with TradFi), and a value capture mechanism from activity in the Ethereum economy.

READ article | Etherealize

What Big Companies Are Building on Ethereum – Galaxy

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 22:41:00 +0000

Major Use Cases Gaining Traction

More than 50 mainstream companies outside the crypto industry have developed products or services leveraging Ethereum or its Layer 2 networks. These firms span a variety of sectors—from fashion giants like Louis Vuitton and Adidas to major financial players including Deutsche Bank and PayPal. Importantly, the focus here is not on general crypto market infrastructure such as trading platforms, custodians, or compliance tools. Instead, these initiatives center on Ethereum-native use cases like NFTs, real-world assets (RWAs), Web3 development tools, and Layer 2 solutions. Of the 20 financial institutions identified as actively building on Ethereum, half are banks—most of which are exploring or issuing RWAs. This report aims to spotlight the most notable early use cases driving institutional and enterprise adoption of Ethereum.

The Ethereum Renaissance is Here

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 03:40:54 +0000

Nine years after its inception, Ethereum has evolved into the leading institutional blockchain technology, overcoming significant technical, social, political, and regulatory obstacles. By Fall 2024, Ethereum achieved key milestones in scaling via Layer 2 solutions, which drastically reduced transaction costs, and gained regulatory clarity as a commodity, further boosted by the approval of a spot ETF. Its Proof of Stake mechanism, battle-tested for over two years, offers ETH yield, positioning it as a digital store of value with cash flow. Despite competition, Ethereum’s superior network effects—including the most capital, developer adoption, and innovative applications—make it the primary choice for institutional blockchain integration and tokenization.

Why Are Institutions Tokenizing Assets on Ethereum?

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 01:10:08 +0000

Ethereum is the most secure, decentralized and neutral, smart contract platform with the most regulatory clarity today. This makes Ethereum the tokenization platform of choice for institutional-grade assets.

READ article | Etherealize

Ethereum L2s: Customizable Blockchains for Institutions

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:33:20 +0000

Ethereum has scaled using Layer 2s (L2s) – customizable blockchains built on Ethereum that inherit Ethereum’s security. L2 architecture allows for a secure, decentralized, neutral Ethereum Layer 1 that provides limitless scaling capacity in customized environments. This is how Ethereum can become the backbone of the new digital economy.

READ article | Etherealize

An Overview of Ethereum and Its Potential Use Cases – Fidelity

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 16:10:47 +0000

ChatGPT said:

Launched in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin and seven co-founders, Ethereum set out to build on Bitcoin’s decentralized foundation by creating a programmable blockchain with broader utility. Unlike Bitcoin, which was primarily designed as digital cash, Ethereum introduced a platform where developers could build decentralized applications using smart contracts. Over a decade later, it has become the leading smart contract platform and the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization. Fidelity Digital Assets’ latest “Coin Report” focuses on Ethereum, offering a comprehensive analysis of its technological foundation and long-term potential. The report emphasizes Ethereum’s role as a programmable platform that uses its native asset, ether, to facilitate transactions and power decentralized applications. It also highlights Ethereum’s early mover advantage, which enabled it to build powerful network effects, and outlines its distinctions from Bitcoin and other digital assets. By enabling developers to create decentralized financial services like payments, trading, lending, and borrowing, Ethereum helped revolutionize the digital economy. Ethereum remains at the center of digital asset innovation, but its future leadership will depend on continued evolution and adoption.

Why Ether Stands Out Among Digital Assets – ARK Invest

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 08:56:08 +0000

*Author: Lorenzo Valente, Director of Research at ARK Invest.
*As Bitcoin solidifies its role as a digital store of value with a fixed monetary policy, Ethereum and its native asset, ETH, are emerging as a complementary institutional-grade asset with distinct economic characteristics. Unlike most digital assets, ETH offers a native yield through staking, positioning it as the only major crypto asset that generates real, protocol-level income. This yield has begun to influence both adjacent networks and broader digital asset monetary policy—mirroring the role U.S. Treasury bills play in traditional finance.

Valuing Layer 1 Tokens as Monetary Stores of Value (MSOV) – Skycatcher

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 03:40:02 +0000

Skycatcher introduces a novel “monetary store of value” (MSOV) framework to value native tokens of Layer 1 blockchains. The framework implies that at today’s prices, Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) are expected to grow their MSOV totals by $142 billion and $85 billion respectively, as they currently trade at 2.1x and 6.7x multiples to their MSOV totals. The paper is a resource to help investors understand long-term value drivers and implied expectations for Layer 1 (L1) tokens.

ETH 2030 Price Target and Optimal Portfolio Allocations

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 22:38:47 +0000

In this report, VanEck projects that approval for spot ether ETFs to trade on U.S. exchanges is approaching. Such products would allow institutional investors and financial advisors to hold ETH through regulated, qualified custodians while benefiting from the liquidity and pricing efficiency characteristic of ETFs.

In anticipation of this development, VanEck has updated its valuation model, reexamined Ethereum’s core investment thesis, and conducted quantitative analyses on ETH’s interaction with BTC in a traditional 60/40 portfolio—focusing on the balance between risk and return.

Monthly Outlook: Expectations on Ethereum

Wed, 15 May 2024 03:19:00 +0000

Author David Han, Coinbase Institutional Research Analyst

Clarifying fundamental demand drivers for ether, and making sense of its narratives.

The recent approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. has strengthened Bitcoin’s identity as a store-of-value and cemented its role in the broader macroeconomic landscape. In contrast, Ethereum continues to face ongoing questions about its core positioning within the crypto ecosystem. Alternative Layer 1 blockchains such as Solana challenge Ethereum’s dominance as the primary destination for decentralized applications. Meanwhile, the rapid rise of Ethereum Layer 2s and the accompanying reduction in ETH burn have introduced uncertainty around ETH’s long-term value accrual model.

Ethereum Institutional Thesis: A Store of Value with Cash Flow

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 15:53:14 +0000

This report dives into eight key institutional theses about the Ethereum network and ETH, its native asset:

1. Ethereum has one of the strongest monetary policies of any major crypto asset.

2. Ethereum’s native staking yield makes it a differentiated store of value.

3. Ethereum’s Proof of Stake mechanism offers a more economical value capture mechanism than Bitcoin’s Proof of Work.

4. Ethereum’s Proof of Stake mechanism is potentially more secure than Proof of Work.

About the Ethereum Market Research Center

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Ethereum Market Research Center (EMRC) is an initiative spearheaded by longtime Ethereum supporter William Mougayar, with support from Ethereum contributors, entrepreneurs, and builders.

EMRC publishes and curates research-oriented content about Ethereum from the many participants and thought leaders in its ecosystem.

If you have written a thoughtful thread on social media or elsewhere, we can polish it and publish it as an Opinion piece.

To submit content or research reports for consideration, please [send an email](mailto:wmougayar@gmail.com?subject=EMRC Submit) with the url or content in the body and a brief explanation about it.

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Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The content on this website is provided for informational and research purposes only. Nothing on this site constitutes financial, investment, legal, or tax advice.

Views expressed in opinion pieces and research reports are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of EMRC or its affiliates.

Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.