Valuations on Ethereum Market Research Center

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.