The Ethereum market is undergoing a fundamental transformation. The era of retail speculation and hyped ICOs is giving way to an era of institutional building. The key driver of this process is major players from Wall Street, who are gradually turning ETH from a speculative asset into a full-fledged monetary unit. This is not just a change in narrative, but a change in the entire market paradigm.
Currently, Ethereum is trading around $1,880, approximately 60% below its 2025 all-time high, when the asset's price approached the $5,000 mark. However, contrary to the pessimism of retail investors who are panic-selling to lock in losses, I see this not as the end of the cycle, but the beginning of a new phase. This is a transitional period where old growth drivers have exhausted themselves, and new ones — institutional — are just starting to gain momentum.
Institutional Foundation: From ICOs to the Real Economy
In the first stage of Ethereum's development, it was driven by ICOs, NFTs, ETFs, and stablecoins — these factors twice pushed ETH to the $5,000 mark. Now, institutional giants are entering the stage. Unlike the "bear" market of 2022, today Wall Street is not just speculating, but building infrastructure on top of Ethereum.
The BlackRock BUIDL fund has already accumulated about $2.6 billion in tokenized Treasury bonds and received the highest money market fund rating from Moody's — Aaa-mf. JPMorgan has also joined the process: their MONY fund continues the tokenization work started through the Onyx platform back in 2020. These are not just experiments — this is real integration of blockchain into traditional finance.
Robinhood Chain: ETH as a Unit of Account
The launch of Robinhood Chain on Arbitrum on July 1 became the strongest argument in favor of my thesis. In just two weeks, the network took third place among all blockchains in DEX trading volume — about $811 million per day, surpassing even Ethereum itself. And although ETH later returned to second place, yielding to Base, the total volume has already exceeded $1 billion.
Key point: ETH is used as the main token for paying fees, and final settlements occur on Ethereum L1. This means Ethereum is becoming not just a platform for applications, but the settlement infrastructure for an entire ecosystem. As Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev noted, any services currently operating through traditional infrastructure will eventually move to an on-chain format.
I draw a parallel with Amazon: after a long stagnation, the company's stock held at $6 (adjusted for splits) for 12 years — and only when the real market grew did the price rise to $241. It seems many are now desperately selling Ethereum at the very bottom.
Counterarguments and Risks
However, it's worth acknowledging: the "bear" scenario has its reasons. ETH has twice failed to break through an important resistance level, and skeptics see no reason for a different outcome in this cycle. Many look at Ethereum and say: the upper boundary of the range is $5,000, there will be no further growth.
Furthermore, the economics of Robinhood Chain are not so straightforward. The network barely pays fees to the Ethereum base layer, and growth is currently driven by memecoins — institutional interest has not yet reached here. If institutional investors do not adopt this point of view, then I, like many others betting on institutional growth, will only be among the main beneficiaries if my scenario is confirmed.
My conclusion: Ethereum is on the verge of a new era. Retail investors, succumbing to panic, are locking in losses at the most inopportune moment, while Wall Street is building infrastructure that will turn ETH into real money. The current downturn is not an end, but a fundamental transitional phase, and those who keep their cool may come out ahead. However, the key risk is the lack of institutional interest in current applications, which could prolong this transition.