What happened to Bitcoin is happening to Ethereum

Author: Mask

After Michael Saylor's Bitcoin reserve strategy was imitated by more than 50 companies, Wall Street has turned its attention to more productive assets. This time, Ethereum has become the protagonist.

“We are experiencing an Ethereum treasury arms war,” dForce founder Yang Mindao described the current market situation in a recent comment. “There are still many old OG chariots represented by Sharplink and Wall Street chariots represented by Bitmine on the way.”

The story of Bitcoin is being repeated on Ethereum.

Wall Street capital is quietly reaching out to Ethereum. When traditional financial giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity enter the market through spot ETFs, a competition for ETH reserves led by listed companies has quietly begun. In just two months, more than 50 institutions have hoarded more than 1.6 million ETH, worth more than US$5 billion.

This group of new capital elites are no longer satisfied with passive holding, but are deep into the core of crypto-economy such as staking and DeFi yield farming,

1. Staking creates cash flow:The cases of SharpLink and BitDigital prove that ETH staking can provide an annualized return of 3%-5%, converting idle reserves into productive assets. This solves the pain point that Bitcoin reserves cannot generate cash flow.

Currently, more than 32 million ETH are staked, with an annualized rate of return between 3% and 5%. According to the Ethereum technical roadmap, validator economic optimization will increase the annualized rate of return on staking to 6-8%, and the staking threshold will be gradually reduced from 32 ETH to 16 ETH or even 1ETH.

This will push the ETH staking rate from the current 25% to more than 40%, locking up about 48 million ETH and further reducing the circulating supply.

2. DeFi income engine:GameSquare's 8%-14% target rate of return reveals a more aggressive capital utilization path. Through strategies such as liquidity provision and re-staking, enterprises are able to participate in the value distribution of the Ethereum ecosystem, forming a growth flywheel of "stablecoin transaction growth → gas fee increase → ETH demand increase → pledge volume increase → network security enhancement".Ethereum's technological evolution has strengthened its fundamental support. The five major technical directions for the next two years include: zkEVM integration will reduce the cost of zero-knowledge proof verification by 80%; the new RISC-V architecture will reduce the gas cost by 50-70%; L1-L2 collaboration will reduce the cost of cross-layer transactions by 90%; and the return of sharding technology.

<span leaf="" para",{"tagName":"p","attributes":{},"namespaceURI":"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"}]'>These upgrades will significantly improve network performance and give rise to new application scenarios such as high-frequency trading and AI reasoning.“Institutions choose Ethereum because it is stable, secure, and does not crash. ——Vitalik Buterin emphasized in his recent statement!

Fourth, Market impact and future prospects, co-evolution of capital and technology

The impact of corporate ETH reserves on the market has begun to emerge. The ETH/BTC exchange rate has risen by more than 50% in the past four months. Analysts predict that it may continue to rise by 30% to 0.035 BTC. Ethereum ETF has received inflows for 12 consecutive weeks, totaling US$990 million, which is equivalent to 19.5% of its managed assets, much higher than the 9.8% of Bitcoin ETF.

With the surge in ETH holdings of listed companies, the influence of traditional capital on the Ethereum ecosystem is quietly being reconstructed:

1. Reshuffle of holdings:Institutions hold more than 1.6 million ETH, accounting for 35% of the total size of spot ETFs. Newcomers such as SharpLink and BitMine hold more than the Ethereum Foundation (242,500 ETH) and traditional whales such as Golem.

2. Concerns about governance rights game:Most of the current players are financially driven institutions, aiming to "hedge against inflation, boost stock prices or gain short-term gains". If they continue to expand their holdings, the governance voice of the developer community and early OG investors may be diluted.

3. Lack of soul figures: Bitcoin has Michael Saylor as its spiritual leader, while Ethereum has not yet seen an evangelist with both faith appeal and capital influence. Whether Tom Lee and other Wall Street background figures can fill this gap remains unknown.

dForce founder Yang Mindao predicts that listed companies' Ethereum holdings may reach 10% of the total circulation (close to 30% of the pledged share), which will become "the biggest change in Ethereum's capital and governance structure." ”

This structural shift deeply binds corporate interests with the health of the Ethereum network, forming a symbiotic relationship.

However, challenges still exist. High premiums may amplify the downside risk of ETH price corrections; DeFi strategies, although more profitable, also come with additional risks; regulatory uncertainty remains the sword of Damocles hanging over all crypto assets.

Standard Chartered Bank predicts that the price of ETH may reach $14,000 by the end of 2025, and independent analyst Sassano sees it as high as $15,000. Driven by price expectations, more listed companies may join the ranks of ETH reserves. The three-level income system of basic pledge (3%-5%) → DeFi portfolio strategy (8%-14%) → re-pledge derivative income is gradually maturing, and companies can customize reserve plans according to risk preferences. When traditional corporate vaults and blockchain protocols form a positive capital cycle, this may be the most solid value anchor of the crypto economy. SharpLink's stock price myth and BitMine's capital surge reveal that Ethereum is transforming from a developer paradise to an enterprise-level financial infrastructure. leaf="">The entry of institutional capital is not the end, but the starting point for the deep integration of Ethereum's value network and the real economy. When the ETH in the vaults of listed companies continues to "generate blood" through pledge and DeFi, and when corporate revenue is deeply bound to network security - this reserve competition that starts with financial returns will eventually reshape the symbiotic logic of capital and technology.

The ultimate proposition of blockchain may be to make the flow of value as unstoppable as code. When corporate vaults and blockchain protocols form a positive capital cycle, this may be the most solid value anchor of the crypto economy.