Almond//Stew

Two major pieces of Ethereum news landed today: Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, is reportedly preparing to offer institutional ETH custody, while JPMorgan, the largest bank in the United States, is bringing JPM Coin’s tokenized dollar deposits to Ethereum. Two giants of traditional finance embracing Ethereum and ETH. But the price barely reacted, whereas on another network, people would be expecting a major pump. There are two reasons for this. First, ETH is larger and more liquid than most competing assets, so it takes more buying pressure to move it. Second, the market already expects major institutions to build on Ethereum. Another announcement is not subverting expectations. Some people might say Ethereum is cursed: success is expected, and it only has something to lose when it disappoints. This is where Ethereum bulls diverge from bears. For years, bulls predicted the adoption now materializing before our eyes. This was NOT consensus. People said institutions would never use Ethereum, or would build everything privately. Now it’s: “That’s already priced in. Good for Ethereum, but how does it accrue value to ETH?” There are two things that mentality ignores. First, this is financial adoption, with size. The players matter, but so do the capital they commit, the assets they tokenize, and how deeply they integrate their products and services. All of that shows growing trust in Ethereum as a financial network, both for people using layer one directly and for layer twos using it for settlement. We are gradually building an internet of finance where the underlying network has one native asset: Ether. ETH secures that system and can be used directly as collateral. Bringing Bitcoin or any other asset, into Ethereum requires additional backing, bridge, or custody arrangements. Native ETH already belongs there. Why does this matter so much? Financial activity settling on Ethereum does not pay Bitcoin’s miners. Bitcoin’s own security model anticipates transaction fees replacing its declining issuance. That activity will not magically show up on Bitcoin just because its proponents expect it to. Second, the uncertainty pushed around ETH’s supply ignores what has actually happened. Since the Merge, ETH’s net supply has grown roughly 1.3% in total, while continuing to reward the stakers securing it. Stakers can earn above supply dilution, with transaction income on top. For an asset used as a store of value, that cannot simply be ignored. There is already actual substance behind ETH’s gradual recognition as a store of value. The network has matured. Proof of stake has years of operation behind it. Current SEC guidance identifies ETH as a digital commodity. The ETFs that critics said would never happen now exist, including BlackRock’s multibillion-dollar fund. Treasury companies like Bitmine and Sharplink are accumulating ETH at scale, and their holdings can produce staking income. That adds another way for investors to gain exposure, and another reason to hold the asset. So when bulls talk about ETH eventually flipping Bitcoin, then gold, this is what they are looking at: an asset with restrained supply growth, native yield, and direct usefulness in a growing financial system. You can disagree with that thesis. But “the price didn’t move” does not answer it. Fundamentals are moving int the right direction, but price is a lagging metric. Many of the things bulls expected are happening. The argument is that ETH is severely underpriced, and that the market still underestimates where it leads.