Bankless co-founder David Hoffman said he sold his ETH after concluding that 
the “ETH is money” thesis has largely played out, marking a notable shift from 
one of Ethereum’s most visible public advocates. Hoffman said he remains 
“massively bullish” on Ethereum as a network, but no longer sees a clear path 
for ETH, the asset, to receive a structural rerating from here. “For someone 
who built a career, community, identity, and business around Ethereum, this 
choice does not come lightly,” Hoffman wrote. “The ETH is Money thesis didn’t 
fail… it played out. Ethereum got the ETH price it deserves, and I don’t see 
ETH being rerated as an asset, higher or lower.” The argument is not that 
Ethereum has failed. Hoffman’s thesis is more uncomfortable for ETH holders: 
Ethereum may continue to succeed as infrastructure while only a marginal share 
of that success accrues to ETH itself. In his framing, the network has become 
one of crypto’s most important open-source systems, but its design choices 
increasingly favor applications, rollups and external monetary assets over 
ETH’s own monetary premium. Hoffman Says Ethereum’s Monetary Window Is Closing 
Hoffman described Ethereum as a vast coordination game, where the “ETH is 
money” thesis required multiple layers of the ecosystem to align at once. 
Ethereum needed decentralized leadership, responsive governance, fast 
technical execution, coherent L2 incentives, and enough market dominance to 
make ETH the natural monetary Schelling point of the ecosystem. Related 
Reading: Ethereum Staking Record Meets On-Chain Collapse: Analyst Explains 
What’s Holding ETH Price That, he argued, was always a narrow path. “Money is 
a coordination game, and coordination is hard,” Hoffman wrote. “The Ethereum 
project itself is a stacked set of coordination challenges across multiple 
layers, and the ‘ETH is money’ thesis required all of them to succeed, and 
succeed with confidence.” In Hoffman’s view, Ethereum made the harder 
architectural choice compared with Bitcoin. Bitcoin stripped its base layer 
down to elevate BTC’s monetary role. Ethereum added programmability and sought 
to maximize blockspace utility. That approach created enormous surface area 
for adoption, but also made ETH’s monetary status dependent on Ethereum 
winning across technology, culture, governance and market structure at the 
same time. Hoffman said Ethereum achieved “some of the way there,” but not the 
maximal version of the thesis many ETH bulls once expected. Fees, L2s And The 
Asset-Capture Problem A central part of Hoffman’s argument is that smart- 
contract L1 tokens remain tied to activity, fees and revenue. He pointed to 
ETH’s dominance in 2021, Solana’s resurgence in 2024, NEAR’s 2026 rerating 
alongside revenue and burn growth, and long-running fee generators such as BNB 
and TRX as examples of the market rewarding chains that retain or expand 
direct revenue capture. Ethereum, by contrast, has deliberately moved toward a 
structure where value leaks outward. Rollups scale execution, applications 
capture more of the user-facing margin, and Ethereum provides secure 
settlement at low cost. Hoffman described this as a feature of Ethereum’s 
ideology and architecture, but a challenge for ETH as an asset. “At its heart, 
Ethereum is a giver, not a taker,” he wrote. “It supplies L2s with the world’s 
most secure blockspace, at cost. It tokenizes the assets of the entire world, 
at cost.” Related Reading: Ethereum (ETH) Next Rally Could Start With These 
Two Triggers, Top Analyst Says That framing sits at the core of his decision. 
Ethereum may be “noble,” “good,” and “the world’s most successful non-profit,” 
Hoffman argued, but that does not automatically make ETH a better investment 
from this point forward. He said the rollup-centric roadmap means L2s can take 
“97% margins,” while the fat-app thesis leaves more economics with 
applications rather than the base asset. Stablecoins And The ‘Strong Crypto’ 
Problem Hoffman also argued that Ethereum’s utility may increasingly 
strengthen other forms of money. He noted that Ethereum hosted $3 billion in 
stablecoins in 2020 and $163 billion today, a 54x increase. The network’s 
success as settlement infrastructure, in that sense, has helped expand 
tokenized dollars, not necessarily ETH’s role as money. He also questioned 
whether the “strong version” of crypto (DeFi, NFTs, DAOs and an alternative 
financial system built for its own sake) ever became a stable enough cultural 
or economic equilibrium. The moment when ETH functioned most convincingly as 
internet money, he argued, coincided with the COVID-era surge in online 
activity, risk appetite and public fascination with crypto. “ETH excelled as 
internet money at the exact moment everyone was forced onto the internet,” 
Hoffman wrote. “The world discovered cryptocurrency for the first time, and 
for that brief window, it was cool.” The implication is that ETH’s monetary 
premium may have depended on a broader crypto-native boom that did not hold. 
Ethereum kept building, but the public narrative around crypto shifted back 
toward scams, grifts and speculation, weakening the social foundation needed 
for ETH to become a dominant store-of-value asset. Hoffman closed by stressing 
that he is not bearish on Ethereum itself. His decision, he said, reflects a 
capital allocation call after the “ETH is money” thesis reached a mature 
outcome. At press time, ETH traded at $2,080. Featured image created with 
DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Bankless co-founder David Hoffman said he sold his ETH after concluding that the “ETH is money” thesis has largely played out, marking a notable shift from one of Ethereum’s most visible public advocates. Hoffman said he remains “massively bullish” on Ethereum as a network, but no longer sees a clear path for ETH, the asset, &#8230;

Bankless Co-Founder Explains Why He Sold All His Ethereum

US commercial and industrial lending reached $2.89 trillion at commercial 
banks for the week ending May 13, up roughly $183 billion year-to-date and 
8.19% above year-ago levels. Corporate America has borrowed heavily through 
rising rates and continues borrowing into tightening bank credit conditions, 
adding more to bank balance sheets in the first five months of […]
The post Aave is bank-sized, but $2.9T in corporate loans reveals the risk 
DeFi still can’t price appeared first on CryptoSlate.

US commercial and industrial lending reached $2.89 trillion at commercial banks for the week ending May 13, up roughly $183 billion year-to-date and 8.19% above year-ago levels. Corporate America has borrowed heavily through rising rates and continues borrowing into tightening bank credit conditions, adding more to bank balance sheets in the first five months of &#8230;

Aave is bank-sized, but $2.9T in corporate loans reveals the risk DeFi still can’t price

Two spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking Hyperliquid’s HYPE token have 
set a new benchmark for altcoin fund debuts in the U.S., absorbing 1.04% of 
the token’s total market capitalization in their first 10 trading days, while 
a single wallet simultaneously withdrew $30.93 million in HYPE from Coinbase 
Prime. HYPE ETFs Outperform Every Prior Altcoin Debut […]

Two spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking Hyperliquid’s HYPE token have set a new benchmark for altcoin fund debuts in the U.S., absorbing 1.04% of the token’s total market capitalization in their first 10 trading days, while a single wallet simultaneously withdrew $30.93 million in HYPE from Coinbase Prime. HYPE ETFs Outperform Every Prior Altcoin Debut &#8230;

Spot HYPE ETFs Log Strongest Crypto Debut on Record as Whale Pulls $30.93M off Coinbase Prime

Tokyo-listed Bitcoin Japan Corporation has invested in SpaceX through a 
U.S.-based private secondary market transaction tied to digital infrastructure 
and AI expansion. According to a press release shared with crypto.news, 
Bitcoin Japan made the investment through BTCJPN US LLC, its…

Tokyo-listed Bitcoin Japan Corporation has invested in SpaceX through a U.S.-based private secondary market transaction tied to digital infrastructure and AI expansion. According to a press release shared with crypto.news, Bitcoin Japan made the investment through BTCJPN US LLC, its…

Bitcoin Japan Corporation invests in SpaceX ahead of planned IPO

China&#8217;s legal framework for AI content and data ownership could enhance IP 
protection, boosting investment and innovation in tech sectors.
The post Supreme People&#8217;s Court of China to refine rules on AI content and 
data ownership appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

China&#8217;s legal framework for AI content and data ownership could enhance IP protection, boosting investment and innovation in tech sectors. The post Supreme People&#8217;s Court of China to refine rules on AI content and data ownership appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Supreme People’s Court of China to refine rules on AI content and data ownership

Ethereum price has remained under pressure near the $2,100 zone after failing 
to reclaim a key long-term resistance level, while analysts warned that the 
asset still risks another major leg lower unless bulls recover momentum above 
$2,500. According to data…

Ethereum price has remained under pressure near the $2,100 zone after failing to reclaim a key long-term resistance level, while analysts warned that the asset still risks another major leg lower unless bulls recover momentum above $2,500. According to data…

Bankless Co-Founder Explains Why He Sold All His Ethereum

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