Ethereum has become a Chinese concept stock

In 2023, early Ethereum investment institutions like Wanxiang sold tokens multiple times, with an average price of $2,047. By May 2026, Bankless founder Hoffman liquidated his ETH holdings, also at an average price around $2000.

Bankless can be regarded as the public relations department for ETH, amplifying the top meme concept "ETH is Money." During the 2021 bull market, their enthusiasm for ETH was equivalent to a firm bullish outlook on the future of blockchain.

Perhaps due to its importance, or perhaps because the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has lost 8 members in succession, Ethereum's founder and spiritual leader Vitalik published a lengthy article expressing his views, admitting that EF (Ethereum Foundation) only controls 0.16% of ETH supply and should not have a status above other ecosystem nodes. He also mentioned he would gradually step back from operations, advocating for Ethereum's freedom.

Ethereum Has No Killers

ETH is Money

Whether you believe it or not, I do.

But how did all this disappear? I mean, the market's confidence in $ETH 's price, holders' trust in the Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik—right now, even at the strongest stage of Ethereum's dominance—so many grievances, is it just about the token price?

If $BTC crashes sharply, it's a good opportunity to buy the dip. If $SOL crashes, the extreme rebound after FTX has already proven its value. If $HYPE crashes, you can follow Arthur Hayes for swing trading.

Classifying it as a personal issue of Vitalik is reasonable, but many abstractions exist around the public chain founders and foundations. Solana founder Anatoly actively promotes the Perp DEX concept in Hyperliquid community, Ripple founders are liquidating $XRP en masse, not to mention the flood of Layer @zuoyeweb3 2 era projects—most founders are ego-driven TGE experts, as seen in the Movement gang.

After careful comparison, Vitalik's abstraction and EF's "inefficiency" are understandable, but it's hard to say they caused Ethereum's current predicament. If they are not the problem, then the environment must be.

In this context, the founders and the foundation actually need to shoulder more responsibilities. This has nothing to do with token prices; precisely because Ethereum's feudal lords are divided, someone must step up to use relatively strong influence to curb systemic entropy.

But Vitalik chose to let EF become bloated, from the Infinite Garden to Ladder theory. Excessive abstraction has left holders at a loss, especially during the rsETH incident, where Aave founder Stani effectively became a hegemon, asserting dominance.

Even Solana Foundation has abandoned past grievances, actively supporting DeFi United, only to see EF's usual token sales and Vitalik's silence.

Doing too much is a form of centralization, but doing nothing or excessive restraint is also an abuse of dominance—deliberately suppressing oneself, under the premise of "thinking oneself is important."

Therefore, Vitalik's decision to shrink EF was a mistake. The right approach would be for Vitalik to become a reclusive youth, handing the foundation over to strong institutions, and focusing more pragmatically on Ethereum's future.

Apart from Bitcoin, other public chains must face the reality of ecosystem development and adoption metrics. In this regard, the Ethereum Foundation holds no special status. People's enthusiasm for DeFi and ETH is rooted in memories of the past, not purely wealth effects.

In terms of ecosystem prosperity and real adoption, Ethereum's killers have never succeeded. Solana might worry about Hyperliquid, but Ethereum does not, just as Bitcoin doesn't worry about Ethereum.

But this preferential treatment is fading. The crisis doesn't come from outside but from within. The real divide is: who is responsible for ETH's price, and who is responsible for Ethereum's direction?

Now Vitalik is choosing to go all-in on privacy, but he shouldn't "block" others from being responsible for the token price.

New Narrative Waiting to Be Sold

Commodity or Productive Money?

After $rsETH and staking ETFs, platforms like BitMine are rapidly building staking services, while Lido and other LST players are more focused on the productive ETH narrative, such as Spark only recognizing Lido $wstETH products.

Everything is being reassessed. Lido is not as calm as it claims. When ETH price hovers around 2000 for a long time, the marginal effect of expanding scale diminishes, and the pressure to maintain APR returns increases, casting a shadow over the productive narrative.

This highlights the importance of price—who is responsible for ETH's price? Currently, EF is not responsible, Lido cannot be responsible, and the entire Ethereum PoS system operates in this awkward environment.

Comparing again to Chinese concept stocks, which in the US stock market cannot serve as exit channels, Changxin Storage follows AI concepts, DeepSeek becomes state-owned, and aerospace and robotics concepts fluctuate between A and H shares. Whether you like it or not, this is the new narrative framework.

图片说明：Return to Mainnet.

图片来源：@tokenterminal

After Ethereum shifted to L1, on-chain activity exploded, but you don't feel the ETH ecosystem is truly improving, let alone the token price rising. Something is wrong, but people can't pinpoint the problem.

So what is the current Ethereum technical narrative?

1. Privacy: Everything can be ZK—this is the last remnant of decentralization philosophy;

2. AI: dAI teams are moving centralized architectures onto the chain, focusing on small model edge deployment and agent invocation;

3. L1: Completely abandoning L2 as the center, returning all speed and revenue battles to L1.

Compared to the "world computer" and smart contract tech, Ethereum is increasingly connecting with reality. Besides these three, there are narratives like stablecoins, RWA, but these are not Ethereum's view of the world—they are Ethereum in the world.

The subject-object inversion, or rather, a lack of clarity about its position in the new world—everything can be on-chain—has diminished the romanticism of blockchain fighting for the future. Yet, there's always a feeling that blockchain can do more. This contradiction, entanglement, and oscillation form the current market's triple wave of sentiment. People want to see a better Ethereum, but seeing a truly good Ethereum is unlikely.

After more than a decade of effort, Ethereum hasn't become the world computer, but it is indeed an open computer. Any activity or idea can be experimented with and run on it. When Bankless promotes ETH is Money, Vitalik insists that ETH is a Commodity—a digital product carrying specific functions.

In this regard, the world cannot blame Vitalik for lying. Vitalik sold 8,800 ETH in February 2026, gradually selling via CowSwap, unlike Curve's founder staking $CRV to get stablecoins, or孙割 (Sun Ge) fiddling with $USDD to fleece retail investors.

But just like the Chiang Mai dialogue in January 2026, looking back ten years, everyone would choose blockchain or AI. Vitalik didn't give a firm answer, but the fact is clear: more and more crypto projects are shifting to AI, with proficient GTM operational methodologies.

• Hermes Agent has gone mainstream, developed by Nous Research;
• xBubble by DappOS, combining AI + intent execution framework;
• OpenRouter founder Alex Atallah from OpenSea.

You will find that crypto project teams' marketing capabilities are not limited to on-chain activities. Even amid the global AI wave, they can keep pace, sometimes acting as intermediaries, tangled with stablecoins, traffic distribution, and operations.

But all this has little relation to Ethereum. Although dAI and virtuals jointly proposed ERC-8183 to regulate autonomous agent economic frameworks, it’s more about active adaptation than leading.

If we treat the current moment as a narrative bottoming out, then the core question is: what value does a public chain have in the AI era?

Claude repeatedly hits SaaS, security, and external agent frameworks. Imagine a bizarre scenario: what if Claude built its own chain? Under PoS, asset migration costs are low, but compliance costs mean Claude would still be under human legal restrictions. An unrestricted financial experiment platform might be Ethereum's most unique value.

Just like Mythos beating Palantir stocks, Qi An Xin would rise against the trend because the opponent's success sparks a military competition across the ocean, endlessly cycling.

Or, in a world increasingly filled with opposition, the need for global connectivity will persist. Canton belongs to Wall Street, but Ethereum belongs to all humanity. Just as the Sahara's people have no shoes, pessimists exit, optimists rejoice.

But the golden age of $ETH will not return. Wanxiang and EF are sold by other institutions, but ETH at 2000 is at least ten times the value of 200. We stand at a new starting point; we just need to set sail.

Epilogue

Fatefully similar, ETH's destiny echoes that of Chinese concept stocks—assets from country A, invested by capital from country B, and exited on B's secondary markets. Country A only bears market and channel value.

This is the best era. Under fragmentation, new markets will emerge. Looking at B's dynamics, similar cycles will occur for assets in country A. Under division, A and B need new connection points. Ethereum remains the best choice.