Source: Consensys, compiled by AIMan@黄金财经
On July 30, Ethereum celebrated its tenth anniversary. On this occasion, Consensys released the "Industrialization of Trust" report.
This detailed report outlines the reasons for investing in Ethereum and the emerging technology category of "Trustware". "Trustware" is an infrastructure that industrializes the production of trust, allowing trust to be encoded in the form of digital goods. Our research and analysis show that Ethereum has become the dominant blockchain platform, supporting more than 50% of non-Bitcoin digital assets, including 60% of stablecoins, 60% of decentralized financial capital, and 80% of tokenized "real-world assets" such as stocks, money market funds, and bonds.
Ethereum’s Breakthrough: Digital Trust and Trust Software
Trust software is an infrastructure that enables the upgrade of analog concepts of trust (such as notes and ledgers verified by human agents and auditors, and guaranteed by human insurers and regulators) to equivalent digital concepts of trust that can be generated algorithmically.
For centuries, human civilization has relied on various forms of trust infrastructure, from tribal kinship to large institutions such as governments, insurance companies, auditing agencies, and legal systems. While these systems have enabled cooperation and economic growth, they are very costly. It is estimated that humanity spends more than $9 trillion per year on trust-related expenses, including insurance ($8.0 trillion), legal systems (more than $1.0 trillion), and auditing ($290 billion). This huge expenditure highlights a fundamental problem: current trust models do not scale effectively in the digital age. They are analog - slower, more expensive, and more fragmented than the always-on, highly automated, and rapidly evolving digital economy that relies on them.
Trust software gives ordinary data the essential qualities of trust - validity and finality - through a completely algorithmic process. Validity guarantees the consistency and correctness of data with mathematical certainty. Finality guarantees that data is permanent and cannot be changed without great expense. Ethereum allows these properties to be added to data in a scalable way, without constant human intervention, thus enabling trust at near-zero marginal cost. In this way, with its powerful public network and groundbreaking cryptoeconomic algorithms that generate digital trust, Ethereum is able to make financial transaction verification - the world's largest consumer of trust - significantly faster, cheaper, more secure, and more scalable at the same time.
Reasons to Invest in Ethereum
For years, investors have been thinking of ETH as the "second largest cryptocurrency." That's true, but it doesn't mean much.
Today, they understand that ETH represents the explosion of stablecoins and other tokenized assets that they see discussed every day in business channels and may even already use in their daily lives. They learn that ETH powers the prediction markets they see online and in the news, and that ETH powers the new tokenized stocks that Robinhood is launching. With landmark legislation like the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, this wave of innovation is only going to intensify. Ethereum is gaining attention as the platform that will power the future of the global economy.
Ethereum was built for this moment from the beginning. It is best-in-class in terms of safety, security, and resilience. The 10th anniversary of the Genesis Block celebrates a decade of unparalleled achievements in digital and traditional asset technology.
Unparalleled Economic Security:With over $100 billion in staked capital and over 1 million validators, Ethereum has built a strong defense against attacks.
Strong Network Effects:Ethereum has the deepest liquidity, the most developers (twice as many as the next closest blockchain), and the richest application ecosystem. The EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) standard dominates the development of smart contracts, and all major stablecoins use Ethereum as their primary platform.
Proven Adaptability and Continuous Upgrades:Through complex upgrades such as Merge (transitioning to proof-of-stake, reducing energy consumption by 99.95%) and Dencun (reducing Rollup fees by 90%), Ethereum has demonstrated resilience and continuous improvement in its first decade without any downtime.
Global Neutrality and Decentralization:Unlike other centralized blockchains, Ethereum is not controlled by a single company or entity. Its more than 1 million validating nodes are spread across more than 80 countries, with more than 67% of nodes running outside the United States, proving its anti-fragility and reliable neutrality.
Institutional Validation and Adoption:Global institutions such as BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, Visa, and Franklin Templeton have begun to use Ethereum for tokenized assets, payments, and private equity investments, validating its security model and reliability. The total amount of tokenized real-world assets on Ethereum has exceeded $13 billion, with a monthly growth rate of 6.75%.
Despite the maturity of Ethereum technology and the continuous consolidation of the digital asset infrastructure market, its economic potential is still in its early stages. Total cryptocurrency market cap accounts for only 0.3% of global wealth, and tokenized securities make up only a small portion of the capital markets. However, increasing regulatory clarity, especially in major economies such as the United States, is accelerating adoption, moving from resistance to embrace of digital assets.
With the convergence of AI and blockchain, the need for trustless infrastructure is at an all-time high: as AI agents begin to trade at machine speeds, they will require machine trust.
Ethereum is the only infrastructure that is ready for an economy that requires algorithms to trust each other.
For institutions, holding ETH means ownership of digital economic infrastructure at a price far below its ultimate value.ETH can be used to pay for network transactions and act as a store of value. Unlike Bitcoin, ETH can also generate cash flow through staking. And, like stocks, as the Ethereum platform becomes more popular, the value of ETH will grow accordingly. It combines the properties of commodities, currencies, and capital assets into a unique and highly attractive asset. As the Trustware report points out, ETH's value will grow strongly as it serves as economic bandwidth, securing the assets expected to be issued and traded on the platform in the coming years.
The trust machine has been built. It keeps running, improving itself, creating more value, and attracting more users.
The question is not whether to trust Ethereum, but whether to trust the digitization of trust.
If you do, then the investment case for Ethereum to own part of the future global economic base layer is self-evident.
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