The Bull & Bear Cases For Ethereum | Roundup

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Blockworks co-founder Michael Ippolito here. Quick break to talk about something we've just launched, Blockworks Investor Relations. As the market shifts toward institutional capital, investors want more transparency, more standardization, and a higher level of professionalism. But, the traditional IR model is slow, manual, and not built for how crypto works. If you're building on chain, your data is already live, your business is already transparent. The challenge is turning that into a clear, credible story for investors. That's exactly what we're solving with Blockworks IR. It's a single platform that brings together real-time analytics, branded investor portals, and hands-on advisory support so you can communicate what matters. If you're an on-chain business looking to level up your investor strategy, check out Blockworks Investor Relations at

blockworks.com/investor-relations. Hey everyone, quick disclaimer before we get into today's episode. Nothing said on Bell Curve is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Our guest and I may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of Bell Curve. Um you got me, Miles, Zev. Zev and I are coming live from the Ethereum Canton conference.

Just kidding. ECC. >> [laughter] >> Here in Cannes. Actually, Cannes is I will say Cannes is absolutely beautiful. If you're going to pick a location for a conference, A+. Is it nice to be in the Cannes? Oh, Miles. Yeah, come on. I had to get that in. Oh my god, you're uh front-running your dad era of jokes. I can see I can see you in a pair of Asics in front of a barbecue. I'm loving it. Yeah, it's uh actually it's really nice that it's in March as opposed to apparently last year it was you know, 100° here, which this has made it quite nice, but um we're actually so the to preempt the topic for this week, we're going to be talking about uh controversially the bull and bear case

for Ethereum. And we're going to be talking about ETH the asset and ETH the ecosystem, uh or Ethereum the ecosystem, maybe separating those two things. But, before we get into that, Zev, I'm curious, what have your takeaways been from conference so far? >> [snorts] >> Yeah. I mean, we were chatting before the show. I think it's clear that there's probably more mindshare in US right now. So, we had ETH Ass last week, of course, which we all attended, and lots of institutions and suits there, and also a lot of builders. And in Europe, like ETH there's probably less fresh talent, to be honest. I didn't meet many like 20-year-olds to 25. Um there's a bit more sort of mature people maybe across companies, and the whole

space just feels more mature. ECC in the past, we were mentioning like modular summer, Celestia had some like really big kind of advances going on on the infra side. ECC, this conference, it wasn't about infra at all. In fact, I believe I talked about infra with one person or like layer twos or anything. It was really about RWAs, tokenization, you know, some privacy, agents, of course, as well. But, it's really about this next phase of Ethereum, which I guess we'll talk about in the show today. So, I think times are really tough. Like, there's no doubt on the social side in crypto. Like, you know, many projects aren't raising. Some funds aren't raising. Um but, what I do think is quite interesting is that European funds seem to be raising still, which I think is interesting. So, like maybe if the talent's not here yet, it might come

back because the capital is is still here. So, yeah, overall, I think it's been a really great conference, informative conference. Like, the people who are here mean business, and that means that you're spending time with really high-quality people that, you know, you can get a lot of insights from. So, yeah, I've enjoyed it. It's been a great conference, but I'm also wondering as a VC now, like where are the best founders? Are they still coming to these kind of events like ETH Denver and ECC, or do they go to like the Stripe events now, maybe? Which is definitely a thought I've been having more recently, and so we'll be attending that NSF in a few weeks, and then we'll be able to get back to you then.

Yeah. I think I I have a lot of the same thoughts. I think, you know, someone like a year ago put this in really concise, interesting terms, which was a lot of people in crypto treat it like a lifestyle, and I've been reminded of that statement walking around Cannes because you're in Cannes, it's sunny, there's palm trees, and the general sentiment that I've heard from people is like yeah, this is a there's, you know, some business to be done here, but this is really a place that I go to hang out with my friends. And I think that it's very interesting to juxtapose that with you know, I think if you look at some of these other ecosystems that are playing

to win, it's a very different mindset. Obviously, a much smaller um it it you they're not even ecosystems in the same comparable way, but there's a very different attitude, and you know, it's kind of interesting to a lot of the conversations that I had with founders, especially on like the smaller side there's pretty common thing, I think, which is a a bunch of founders have raised, especially in like, you know, the infra space, something like that, over the course of the last three or four years, haven't been able to find PMF, and are just kind of slowly bleeding. You know, I would I would guess that over the course of the next year or so, there's a lot of um a lot of folks either closing up shop or potentially, you know, M&A, um like kind of aqua hire type situations, and consolidation,

especially in the infra space. I will say I do think there's the opportunity for a valuable a couple valuable infra businesses to get built if you can vertically integrate and consolidate. Um so, I there'll be like one or two very valuable, I think, um winners that are kind of last man standing that emerge from that category. Um but yeah, generally like the trend of the conference the last couple years is smaller and smaller, and you know, it's not bringing new people in. Compared to last week, is the are like the topics roughly the same? Like, there's just, you know, top of mind uh for everybody. Um I guess that was my one my first question. The second one is like, was there, you know, um

one big announcement, you know, from like a core Ethereum developer? Cuz there's usually like one big thing that, you know, the powers that be want to push out at these things. Um and I would think that like now of all times is probably the time to be making big announcements and get people excited and rally the troops. Um but, I haven't heard anything, so I'm curious just if there was anything I missed, or if that's not really not really the case, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just Mike and I were hanging around more side events and maybe spending a bit less time in the venue itself, but at least from those side events, I'm sure some things were announced, but it didn't seem like anything in particular was like extremely hot in terms of like an

announcement on the technical side, at least. On the business side, um yeah, also I feel like a good way of describing the difference between ETH Ass and ECC is like ETH Ass business is done, you know, like there are deals done, shaking hands at ETH Ass. That's like quite valuable. ECC, like just because we're in such a bad market right now, it's tough, I think, to strike deals. And, you know, you mentioned consolidation, but the reverse is also true of like these new startups popping up. Like, the funding is like actually not there, and I think a lot of founders also still at ECC haven't come to terms with this yet. So, I think the industry is in a like a tough place. So, like if you have the money coming to Cannes, one takeaway was I read this on X, and I've

I've actually heard this from quite a few people. Like, a lot of the side events haven't had like great food and and drinks because I guess they're certain way. So, maybe that's like a state of the market, but like I think the overall takeaway for me is like just tough. Like, still some cool ideas and cool people around the place like spiking up, but I think we're going to look back on this year, 2026, as like similar to 2018, when you had to be like a very true believer, like kind of half lost your marbles to believe like this is going to absolutely come back in a big way, cuz right now it feels like it's it's not going to happen, but of course, we're all in the industry cuz we believe it will.

It reminds me of a Cosmos bear market conference, you know, just no money to go around. Oh, Miles, don't say that. >> Cosmos never came back. >> [laughter] >> Not a good sign. Hey, but we had our bad kids meet up, and that was fun, you know. Hell yeah. Yeah, I still rep the bad kid. I love the bad kids. The other thing I'll say, too, is it feels like the crossover the the things the events that have been good here are the RWA Summit and Vault Summit. Actually, shout-out to Morpho here, who got some team swag. Morpho does swag better than any company in crypto. They absolutely crush it. But, they those are those are the events that people want to

you know, want to hear cuz there's a lot of PMF that's happening on the Vault side of things. Yeah, I would say like Vaults are by far the most discussed thing. I think it Yeah definitely. All right, speaking of all of this, maybe this is a good lead-in for um the bull versus bear case on everyone's favorite L1 here, which is Ethereum. And maybe just to give some of the setup and context, um you know, the history of Ethereum, I feel like is it was the the chain that really sparked um it was the chain that opened up the potential past just, you know, the digital gold uh you know, digital pet rock money app that was the Bitcoin chain. And that's where

you had the ERC-20 standard and a bunch of like ICOs, like capital formation, uh DeFi summer, now actually real institutional and institutional capital moving on chain and being organized in vaults um as these sort of, you know, ETF evolution kind of credit credit wrappers. At the same time, you know, I feel like sentiment and actually activity really peaked on Ethereum back in like 2021 or 2022, and from a price standpoint for ETH and actually just from a network activity standpoint has been a really challenging last at this point three or four years um I think for Ethereum. And there are certainly bright spots in terms of

I think it's absolutely like we can get into maybe like starting with bull case. There are certainly bright spots in terms of um you know momentum around DeFi and you know it feels like there at least for a little bit there where there was more focus around building on main chain but yeah it it feels very much like we're in a little bit of a limbo period here. And I I think people are looking for context. So why don't we start um on on a positive note here and start with the bull case. So does anyone have a maybe um Zay if I can kick it over to you here.

What's the what's the bull case for Ethereum? >> [snorts] >> Yeah. I uh think my bull case for Ethereum still lies on two things I think mainly. Uh one is the real asset. So I like it's kind of clear that assets are coming on chain and Ethereum's still like the main venue for that. So uh it seems like this conference outside of vaults the next topic is really RWAs coming on chain and what assets those are and how those are being used financially etc. So there's a lot of like curators around the place here and it's very clear that like vault management as like an industry is going to continue growing over time and I I

think right now you're seeing most of that vault management being done on Ethereum. And so as capital keeps flowing into Ethereum of course has all the liquidity I think that Ethereum will capture probably the most amount of value there especially obviously the Solana news that came out recently. I I think like Solana DeFi is like kind of tough actually it's in a tough spot right now and it never really caught up to Ethereum. I don't think any chain has really caught up to Ethereum DeFi. So to some extent I think long term if you believe in DeFi then you believe in Ethereum being top winner in this space. Um that's that's the first thing. The second thing which is related is I I believe pretty strongly that like AI agents will use crypto rails and I think that Ethereum at least right now from a

incredibly neutral standpoint is the best chance of actually receiving agentic activity on chain outside of centralized players like Tempo etc. Like I think Tempo etc. will have a lot of agents and they'll get a lot of volume etc. on their chains but I think like I have spoken to some startups here in Kong this week who are building really interesting kind of AI agent infrastructure and and or products as well. And so I think we're in a really really interesting place right now in terms of like what that future looks like on Ethereum and how much agentic activity they can actually obtain because if they manage to get a bunch of agentic activity long term like that market could actually outpace the market how we're using crypto today as as humans. So You felt you felt one who

building like agentic products on? Yeah. Yeah. You always think of like micro payments and you know needing really really low fees when you think of agentic you know activity. So that's a problem. Yeah. So I think like it's a good good question Miles. I mean from what I understand where the market actually is on the Ethereum L1 it's more on that kind of like credit space like lending borrowing kind of like lower latency activity of of higher value. So it's going to be like less throughput in something like a Tempo so maybe less payments but more like credit I could see emerging as quite a big market long term for the agents on on Ethereum.

Yeah I think maybe to add to that and Miles want to tag you in here but I it feels like all of the one observation over the years is that when a chain wins a specific use case it tends to be very sticky and I can't really think of any example actually where uh a use like a use case like a sector really found product market fit and then fully migrated to another chain. And I mean ETH really got it right with DeFi summer and ICOs. I mean really what that is is finance right? It's um you know capital formation and then uh asset management. And you know it hasn't really ever migrated uh you know migrated to another chain

and I think Solana has had some uh recently promising growth on the RWA side but it's definitely still very dominant on ETH. And I think that that's still where the critical mass and momentum is. And I mean just if you look at startups in general once there's a winner that emerges as a category leader it's just typically very very difficult to unseat. Right? Like once Netflix started winning in streaming I mean they just kind of continued to win and I think the same thing is happening with Polymarket and Kalshi at the moment. It's just it it starts to become like well why would I build anywhere else um kind of thing. So I think that's starting to happen. I also think weirdly a bull case for Ethereum is that while it hasn't scaled to the degree that people would have

hoped uh we also have far less demand than people expected in a weird way. So it actually has worked out in such a way that the fees are pretty reasonable on ETH main chain right now. And they're slowly scaling the L1 and there are some pretty meaningful improvements um like the prioritization of single slot finality which should also be big for the wider Ethereum ecosystem I think. Um And I I also think on the bull case for Ethereum and this will get into I mean my ultimate view here but I think ultimately um over a number of years that is a very very powerful fact like even if you look at something like Tempo we talked about this Tempo and Stripe. I think that the biggest challenge and

uphill battle that they'll have is their competitors even if they're not directly competitive in the market that Stripe is competing for which is that the L1 you know fees that they're able to uh to generate competitors won't want to entrench or give Stripe an advantage or an entrenchment that they might be able to build. So Ethereum is this neutral space I think which um which is really really positive. And you know the other thing too is a big takeaway from this conference has been the amount of hacks. Um I mean Drift was just exploited for you know some 280 million and um you know we also saw the resolve um you know the USR kind of bug that happened earlier and it's really top of

mind for everyone and Ethereum by just re-emphasizing credible neutrality security I think it works from a brand standpoint. I think of Ethereum main chain as being quite safe. Uh so I think that that's actually all of those things are really deeply working in its favor. Yeah I totally second that. Um I was uh catching up with my old friends or my old colleagues at Fidelity this week um and and last week and you know it's great to see that they're like getting pretty aggressive with wanting to put out DeFi products or products that tap into DeFi. Yeah it's like not even a question um that they would be deploying on ETH right? Um it's everybody's like first place that

they deploy and I could see them just you know having no reason to kind of deploy anywhere else right? Um it's like you're already taking some risks in putting out this new product. Why would you risk you know the chain infrastructure as well right? By trying out some like new chain. So like that that's the that's the bull case for RWA DeFi um you know and and I think there's is a lot of reasons to be bullish on that category in general and that's likely going to be on ETH. Um the other two reasons to be bullish on ETH are like uh just technical trends like um ZK is getting really good. Like ZK has come a a really

long way since um I think everybody's last time trying like a ZK roll up or like hearing about you know the metrics and things like that. Um so I think you know the the scaling road map that is very ZK centric is going to make a lot of sense. It is going to actually you know um be competitive and they're going to solve interop very soon. Um with the L2s and then uh quantum I think is interesting because Bitcoin can't get its together. So if I am thinking about like even maybe a straw man like bull case for why should Ethereum's market cap which is 245 billion dollars right? Um already go up significantly.

Yeah. And it feels like catching flows or outflows of Bitcoin ETFs into this thing because you know some talking heads are very very concerned about quantum and Bitcoin actually cannot get its together like historically they've never been able to do anything fast enough on the development side. Um you know like I'm not worried about that for Ethereum. We'll get like lattice signatures in or something like that and they'll they'll they'll solve it. Um and maybe that actually ends up catching like a good chunk of Bitcoin's market cap but I don't know. Others failing is not a great reason to be like your main bull case for for an asset. Um I'm sure there's others but anyways I'll I'll

pause there. I agree with that. Um I think ultimately the quantum stuff for Bitcoin is sol it I think it's Bitcoin deserves to get punished for it now especially because you know the knee-jerk reaction of frankly everyone every sort of maximalist in crypto but Bitcoin pioneered this is just knee-jerk of oh you're fudding and that's just not what you want to hear as an investor when there's this as like an existential risk um which quantum's not really an existential risk. The protocol's not the problem it's the wallet side of things.

And there's I haven't heard any particularly good solutions proposed for the Nakamoto wallet. I mean that's that's an enormous amount of sell pressure, right? That could come onto the market. Yeah, and Wall Street like gets that. Like, if you go Satoshi's wallet is going to get hacked, like they kind of get that's not a hard thing to get. It's not super technical. Can we make the bull case for Ethereum that Saylor's putting out the most ridiculous ads for his new stretch product, too, with like AI-generated images of women being like "Uh you're not meant to live an uncomfortable life." Oh my god, that is hilarious.

likes bull yeggs. At least Vitalik is not doing that. At least >> [laughter] >> our At least our [snorts] boy's Yeah, well Saylor has a lot of other issues, but yeah, not that. All right, let's get to the let's get to the bear case, the bear case here. I don't know if anyone has Who wants to go first? >> we can start there, like leadership. Um it's not inspiring. It's not in touch with reality and >> [snorts] >> it felt like they were turning things around by like putting in some real like commercial business leaders, uh and then they left. Um and it seems like you know, Vitalik's more like focused on [snorts] AI doomer posting than he is on

like understanding the needs of like what people want um and just read reading the market and like you know, the other like let's say like periphery leaders, um you know, they made a big push into dapps. Not great. Um [snorts] when they you know, I I I just I I kind of get what you're doing, like you're just trying to get like manufacturer a bid for this asset and make it easy. Um but in general, like if I was just evaluating this asset and then comparing the teams that are you know, I'm comparing this asset I you know, to like Solana Canton um

all the others. I don't I don't have a ton of confidence. >> But that's always that's never really been Ethereum's problem. I I just think it it kind of I don't know. It's an under-appreciated problem. Like, I wonder if there was like if there was a team leadership team in place that was super in touch with the market where we'd be right now. Well, you know what the analogy that I'd give you here on this is, you know, Bob Iger has been the CEO of Disney forever, right? And he he really built Disney into the juggernaut that it is today and he put his Imagineers in place and he set a very specific culture and guide and vision. You know, he's grooming his replacement, Bob Chapek. Hey, okay, Bob, you're you're in charge now.

But then Bob Chapek starts doing stuff that Bob Iger didn't like. He's deprioritizing those Imagineers. Hey, that's the foundation. And what does Bob Iger do? He comes back in and says, "Actually, Bob, you're not in charge. I'm back in charge." I I feel like that's what we just watched play out in the last year, right? It was kind of like, "Hey, I'm listening to the market and we're going to put this commercially oriented guy, Tomaz, in charge here. Ooh, I don't actually like how that looks now that I see it and that, you know, now I want to go talk about crops and this stuff." Which, by the way, is I think going to end up being very long-term valuable. Also, it's his vision, right? I mean, ultimately at the end of the day, I get that Ethereum is decentralized. People look very much to

Vitalik Vitalik like a spiritual leader and they look to him for explicit guidance. I think James Prestwich said this incredibly well one time, which is Vitalik has perspectives. And he you have to you have to kind of divine, you know, like sous chef because he won't tell you them directly, but he obviously has the perspectives and so you kind of indirectly find out by his actions and these long manifestos. But yeah, Miles, your point it's just not what the market wants to hear. And my my long-term prediction for this is that like look it's an enormous place of It's it's easy to forget that Vitalik's a very young guy. Like, he kind of, you know, wrote this program and Ethereum became what it

was. It's an enormous position of responsibility to find yourself in. I also think that he's a person just like anyone else. I I I think I think after a couple more years of pain, he actually will respond um because I think he might find out that you can't actually have a successful ecosystem if the token's going bleeding down into the right the entire time. Um So, I think he might end up finding like to me those the price appreciation of ETH and the the mission of Ethereum I think he views them as different, but I view them as inexplicit like You can't have one really without the other long-term, I think.

But I think he'll respond. I just think he think he's responded yet. That's Anyway. Maybe on the foundation point. So, I think Ethereum was going in the right direction and I was starting to get more bullish in the last 6 to 12 months, but it seems like Vitalik is back and I feel like maybe not back necessarily for the better. In terms of like the stage of maturity of where Ethereum is at, it needs like business people bringing assets on chain, making it exciting to, you know, people in institutions, etc. So, the the problem with Vitalik is that like I think his vision for Ethereum he's had for a long time, like I'm I'm not sure that the next where the market is at all right now buying it really. It's like, okay, like

AI might come and there's the doomer post that Vitalik has and, you know, maybe Ethereum is private, but like the question is like who is he trying to address? Like, I think Ethereum Solana worked this out. The foundation is really great top-down. Like, if you're a builder in Solana, Solana is all over what you're doing and they're trying to support you. If you're a builder in Ethereum, it's impossible to get support, impossible. Very, very similar to Cosmos. And we all know what happened to the Cosmos. And so, if you want to grow the ecosystem, you actually need to support the fresh blood. And I feel like Ethereum does not do that. Um it was doing that in the last 6 to 12 months, but I think now it's changed. Even at this conference, I felt it. And so, it's very clear that the business people have come and gone

from Ethereum in the last 6 to 12 months and unfortunately now we're back to Ethereum what it was in the last few years of like less growth, less Yeah. I mean, I just I just don't think they're genuinely like like excited about RWAs. Like, I I I really don't think like the original DeFi apps and what worked, these were world like World War III resistant apps with ETH as the quote asset for everything, right? And when ETH is like the money of this ecosystem, that was that's what makes it like a self-contained ultra-censorship-resistant like like type of application, right? Um if you notice like nothing is quoted in

ETH that much anymore. Like, it's all USDC, it's all USDT. Um and and it's being paired with other RWAs, right? Which at the end of the day it's like, okay, what is the point of, you know, um having like everything self-contained and everything like, you know, um using this asset and all the 32 ETH and like there's just so many more like decentralization shortcuts that you could have taken if you weren't like dead set on this being like World War III resistant apps with World War III resistant asset being the money of the ecosystem. I think that's honestly what they still like that's the vision that they're that they're pursuing and so it's hard to

reconcile that with the fact that what they're winning on is like very, very different, you know, in its nature and in terms of like RWAs and stables. Can I show you I hate I hate to do this, but I'm going to pull up this tweet um Mike from 2024 uh which is actually that RWAs could be bearish for ETH the asset um because RWAs are actually competitive with ETH the asset, which could erode its network effects. And it's exactly what you just described, Miles. It it also goes beyond just um like the quote asset, right?

Like, this was originally what drove demand for ETH the asset was ICOs, which is raised in ETH, which created this demand, but then eventually when ERC-20s took off you the you know, on Uniswap originally, you had to pay every pair was in in ETH. Um but then, you know, you had these other you had the like the borrow lend protocols, right? Like, this was the original use case for actually like Maker back in the day and Aave and Morpho. If you look at what Morpho looks like today uh both of them a deposit standpoint and from the other >> OpenSea buying buying all the NFTs with the with the ETH. Yeah. Yeah, but if you look at like the, you know, the amount of deposits that are in, you know, that are in ETH

it's a super tiny percent, right? And if you look at like what people want to borrow and lend is their their dollar assets or actually some CB So, you know, there's a good about 25% of um deposits that are in Bitcoin because of the Coinbase integration. But yeah, it's really actually the RWA use case This is kind of the idea of like this is an old idea that the Ethereum ecosystem could succeed, but ETH the asset could not. Like, we're kind of watching that play out in real time because all of these RWAs that are coming on chain, they're eroding demand and the network effects of the actual underlying asset. I think there used to be like there used to be

entire funds that like denominated the fund in ETH. Like, they would like exit assets to ETH and that [snorts] was just it was just a stockpile, right? Yeah. I think that level of belief is gone now and and ironically the only I mean, the only funds that are the only like version of that today is Al. Like, people like really, really bullish Al if you're into it. Um and maybe maybe Bitcoin, but yeah, that that level of like I think I think is totally gone. Yeah.

Um Yeah, it's a uh And by the way, it's a $250 billion asset, [snorts] right? Like Yeah. people have to remember this is insane um that it's gotten this big in the first place. This is the other thing to I mean the two other things, these are all all old debates, but they were never settled. They were never settled. So, the first is that North Star debate for Ethereum that people pooh-poohed. It's an unclear story. I actually I uh we did a at our DAS conference last year in London, we had Nigel Farage come. Nigel Farage used to be a commodities trader, and I caught up with him for like 30 minutes before he went on uh stage, and he said something about silver, which was really interesting. You know,

he's comparing silver to gold. He's like, "Ah, silver never found its story." Um and I was like, "Oh, wow, that's really interesting." Cuz you know, you think of gold, it's very clear what it is. It's this store of value. People had it for 5,000 years. But silver, it's like kind of like that, like a lesser version, but also it's an industrial It has more industrial use It's like a complicated story, and ETH has never gotten that. You know, if you were to try to describe what ETH is in a couple words, you'd be like, "Well, it's kind of like RWA chain, on-chain finance." Which it which gets you there a little bit.

First of all, I don't think that's what a lot of people, you know, that are like OG cypherpunks would like. But that's that's where we're where we're coalescing. But the question there is, how does that actually translate into fees? And this is the value capture versus value creation argument. Even if there's all this borrow-lending activity that's happening on ETH, it is not It's generating an extremely de minimis amount of fees. And like I've always been on I feel this has always been my perspective that this chain is going to get valued based on the fees that it can generate. And my hope is that people start coming around to that viewpoint because the asset keeps trending in the wrong direction but I I just even if it wins this, I actually don't see how ETH generates a

bunch of fees. So, Takes me back to my point before of like Ethereum is a low-throughput chain, and so like Solana, what they focused on is like volume, high throughput, activity, trading. So, if both these chains come back in a big way, I think Solana's probably going to be better off. Like Mike, not only I guess as well with Ethereum, you know, the infrastructure itself, you need high volume for the infrastructure to be viable. And I think Ethereum right now is still looking for more use cases with PMF, more projects, like more value, I guess, on the chain itself, and more apps doing bigger and better things. And I feel like in Ethereum, more recently, there hasn't been any massive drivers of like value, especially on the the L1 itself. Like on

Solana, you know, hate or love it, they had Pump Fun, they had genuine apps that driving a lot of activity to the chain. I think on Ethereum, there's less inspiration for some of these apps. Like it might pop up in the near future, but they're like I again, it takes me back to the ETH Foundation point. Like if you want activity on the chain, you need to support the new builders. Going back to I think Miles's point before as well around RWAs, I think I agree like Ethereum is less bullish on this RWA kind of use case and coming on chain, and they want ETH to be the base asset for these pairs. And then like that's how they want to create network effects.

But that's just not happening right now. We're seeing that in real time. And so I think the trouble with Ethereum is that the direction the chain is going in isn't necessarily the direction the foundation want wants it going in. And that's like the big disconnect right there. Separately, as we've talked throughout in this podcast before in the past, applications are accruing a lot of value now, and infrastructure is being left for dead, also Solana. So, there's a bear case there around like can Ethereum capture more value as more applications go live, or are the applications themselves and/or protocols going to capture most of the value going forward?

And that for me is still like a TBD. I don't think anyone has like a massive take on like it's probably going to be both the infra and the apps. But at least right now, the If I look at the value of Ethereum and Solana, I feel like they're pretty fairly valued. Going back to your point, Mike, on if they're valued by fees or not. Like more and more every conference you go to, like people are valuing businesses now in crypto. Like they want to value the revenues, the cash flow, you know, profit etc. Uh Ethereum, I think over time will be valued more and more like this, for for better or for worse. In the past, I think it was valued like money. That is another bear case, I think, for Ethereum, by the way. If they start getting valued as a business, and the

business doesn't look great, and it's not growing, well, that's a terrible time for the asset. So, I do think that could be another bear case of like just how investors start funding and actually valuing these projects. And unless Ethereum starts growing their piece of the pie. And again, going back to my bull case, I I genuinely believe the next economic actors are going to be agents. And so like if you want to target a new market, it has to be the agentic market. I think if Ethereum do not get the agentic market right, they're in a really bad spot. Right now, it's kind of hard to see like what this actually looks like, but like humans aren't coming to Ethereum really anymore. Like some uh institutions are with RWAs and stuff like that. Consumers aren't there for sure. Consumers are on Solana. Like even me personally, I just [snorts] Solana a

lot more than Ethereum as an end user. So, if Ethereum's not going for the end user consumer crowd, and it's going for the institutional crowd, I think if they want to keep it decentralized, keep those values incredibly neutral, I think agents, like going back to your point earlier in the podcast, Mike, security and safety on Ethereum, like agents on Solana, even just us talking about it right now in this podcast, like probably you might think there's some extra level of risk, maybe because the infrastructure is less mature or battle-tested, whatever it is. On Ethereum, it kind of feels like you can get that security and those guardrails from these agents. And it just feels like you can trust the brand of Ethereum and the infrastructure and the EVM itself. And that has network effects, obviously, now that people trust. So, I think that there is a bull case to be

made there around agents. But yeah, I think Ethereum really needs to push, as in the foundation, better growth, more teams, more inspiration, and better apps, to be honest, on the L1 itself. Last Last point I want to make so we haven't also made it in the podcast yet as a bear case. Uh I know you guys aren't as bullish on Base the the coin as I am. Like I think Base would be a pretty big coin, and I think Base stands to capture a lot of value away from ETH asset. When Base like if ETH is already in a bad spot right now, I could imagine Base coming out as well in the next 6 to 12 months, and that market cap really growing, and Ethereum ETH really not growing whatsoever. So, yeah, curious to get your take on that one, guys. Uh my perspective, I have no

inside knowledge. I just I I'm very bullish on Base the chain. I I think that I'm I I don't know if they would launch a token. So, I don't I don't have a strong of perspective on that. But I was actually going to just add to outside of even Base, just there's an opportunity for like these competitive chains, like Canton and Tempo, um in the same way that Hyperliquid successfully counter-positioned Solana, I think there's the opportunity for a more opinionated chain to counter-position um for the RWA and kind of uh you know, finance use case. Um so, you're already seeing that on the payment side of things with Tempo, and you're seeing that on the kind of RWA side of things with Canton.

Um And it's unclear. These are kind of I have a lo- larger take here, maybe for a closing thought for me on kind of the corporate chains and how this story ends with Ethereum, but that's that's another big risk um coming down the pike. Like I don't Yeah, I mean, building on Canton here or Tempo is probably not a bad call. Um Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, that's the hard part. >> yeah. It's like [snorts] uh you know, it's almost like they're trying to unbundle ETH, right? Like ETH was this big bundle of of activity. Uh and if you can just pick one of the things that's happening on ETH and do it better than them, right? Or you're going to siphon off some of that activity. Um

and we've seen that um like pretty consistently over the last 5 years. So, The app chain thesis. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Cosmos sector sector sector sector Yeah, sector. >> Yeah. Which ended up being correct, I think. And I've my my So, actually to to knit maybe these perspectives in terms of what I what I actually think is going to happen is I think the big trend actually right now is corporate chains. Like everyone like the Cosmos thesis is playing out in a number of ways here. Um and I think that the knee-jerk reaction of institutions like the Stripes or the DRWs of the world is like, "I want to have control. I want to own the full-stack platform. I'm going to launch my own chain."

I think eventually, after doing that and having a chain live for a number of years, they're going to be like, "Ooh, there's a lot of maintenance and work." And actually, it's that value chain episode that the three of us did. I think they're going to look and say, "You know, really what I want is all the all the fees get generated at this execution layer. I need this you know, this layer underneath. It's more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. And I could just, you know, apparently it's okay to run a single sequencer roll-up. So, I think What I think is there's going to be be a you know, this Cambrian explosion of people used to say that all the time.

Cambrian explosion of corporate chains, but I think they're going to recentralize and focus around Ethereum, and I think that'll play out on like a I don't know, like a two- to three-year time horizon. Uh but even in that world, the I like I think that Ethereum at this point has critical mass, the credible neutrality. And honestly, if they're scaling the tech slower than everyone would like, but there's also again less demand. So, I think actually the Ethereum ecosystem here is going to continue to be successful. I see success at least in the finance use case.

What I still I think it really just depends how Vitalik responds to pressure. And if he says, "You know what?" If he comes to the conclusion that Ethereum needs to be suc- the asset needs to be successful, and we're going to generate fees, I think the asset will be successful. And I still think that's the most likely case. But I could also see a world where it's like I got my 50-year vision on crops, and doesn't respond. And I think in that instance the token is not successful. That would be my um So, Mike, do you think it really just comes down to Vitalik himself?

Um yeah, I think it yeah. I mean like look, I know that this is heretical in crypto. I don't believe in this idea of like decentralized leadership. I don't think that's not a thing. Um people follow people even in super decentralized organizations like countries, there's a reason there's one person on top because it has to come from one person's unified vision for something. And I think there there are multiple options here, right? Like but either I think it either has to be Vitalik you know, takes the which it looks like he's doing. He's kind of stepping back uh you know, into the driver's seat here and you know, putting his vision into the protocol in the ecosystem or he has to fully abdicate. He can't do the Bob

Iger thing. He has to really fully delegate you know, someone or a group of people to lead the more commercial vision here. And honestly, I don't think it really makes sense to do like there's this alliance here and this institutional part and that has to be one one thing, one org. Um it's too confusing right now. So, that would be my that's my perspective, yeah. If it just comes down to that, at least as of right now, I would probably be like neutral. Like I don't know if I'd be bullish or bearish.

Like I think there's things that could go right, but at least right now there's it looks like some things are actually going wrong as well. So, if it's just the leadership and that's how you present a bull or bear case, like the foundation itself and the leadership of that foundation and the change of guard and now going back to what it was a few years ago, which didn't perform very well ultimately. Uh I think yeah, maybe a potential issue, but I do think that it's probably beyond just the leadership. And with or without Vitalik, like Ethereum can probably be like a great chain long-term, currently neutral, secure, etc. But um yeah, right now like it's tough to see. Like I don't know if I'm a buyer or a seller right now. I don't know about you guys, but it's uh it's in an interesting place. I think the threat

of Solana we haven't actually mentioned in this podcast as well. Like Solana was really threatening Ethereum at some point in time. Now it seems like that threat isn't there so much anymore, which actually could be another small bull case Yeah. But Solana the other facing a lot of the same challenges that Ethereum is facing, I think at the moment for what it's worth. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say the other like um slightly bull case is that uh like launching your own chain or like your own roll-up, like that's not really a, you know, a thing anymore. Um and uni chain coming back, like that that's a good sign, right? Um you wouldn't want We saw how that works and then they end up with their own their own islands on L2 and if just net net wasn't worth it.

So um in general, I mean yeah, like activity is coming back, but need to get with the program. Also, Ethereum has by far the biggest ecosystem. It it's it's it's surprising me actually that Solana is still way thinner as an ecosystem. I don't know. I think that is bullish. Like it really does attract cuz also when if you work at a bank or a big asset manager and you're looking into the space for the first time, you're kind of like, all right, where are all the people at? I mean it's much less sophisticated than you might think, right? Like we've all been debating and arguing the pros and cons of these different chains for a long time, but they're kind of just where are the the liquidity and the users and the people? And they look at that first. And ETH has to lead there by

far. And I should also say to you, I am very like I want Ethereum to work 100% and I want it First of all, it's absolutely going to work. Um and I want it to continue to be successful and for the token price to go up. That's very much my that's very much my desire. But I do think nothing's inevitable. I think crypto has made the mistake of thinking that this stuff is inevitable. And that's how we've gotten 4 years of underperformance on basically all the basically everything other than Bitcoin. Um in in the tokens especially are guilty of this, right? So, I the point of these episodes are to say nothing is taken for granted, right?

Like there's no, oh, we're all going to make it. Like we're not all going to make it. Some people are going to make it and it's going to be depending on the people that make the right choices and decide to work really hard. So, that would you know, that's my I don't know. I don't want this to seem like, you know, not being supportive here. I absolutely am, but yeah, we you know, nothing's written in stone. Well, that sounds like we're all pretty neutral. Like I think like none of us are bearish, but also none of us are massively bullish. I think that there's a lot to still work out, but they might actually end up doing a fantastic job and it just remains to be seen. Yeah.

All right, guys. Um maybe we can call it here. Have a relatively short one today. Um but this was a ton of fun. Um and we will do this again when at least I'm back stateside and safe at home and home and home. I want to talk to you when you're home. Same. All right. Sweet. This was fun, guys. See you.