Ethereum advocate and David Hoffman said he sold his ETH holdings after concluding that the long-running “ETH is money” thesis has largely matured and may no longer offer the same upside repricing opportunity for investors.
Hoffman explained in a May 26 post on X that he still remains optimistic about Ethereum as a network, but now believes much of the future value created across the ecosystem could accrue more directly to applications, stablecoins, and layer-2 networks rather than to ETH itself.
He argued that Ethereum’s open infrastructure model allows other parts of the ecosystem to capture substantial economic value. In his view, Ethereum can continue expanding as critical blockchain infrastructure even if the native asset does not experience another major structural rerating.
The comments come during a broader debate about Ethereum’s value-capture model, especially as stablecoin and layer-2 activity continues growing rapidly across the network.
Ethereum’s stablecoin ecosystem has become one of the largest in crypto, with dollar-backed assets representing a significant share of on-chain activity. At the same time, rollup-based layer-2 networks continue absorbing transaction volume and user growth.
Recent ecosystem developments show the debate remains active:
- Vitalik Buterin recently said the Ethereum Foundation plans to reduce ETH sales and focus more narrowly on long-term sustainability, privacy, security, and censorship resistance.
- Projects linked to Ethereum’s layer-2 strategy are also attempting to strengthen ETH’s economic role by coordinating gas usage and interoperability standards across multiple networks.
- Meanwhile, some institutional and corporate treasury strategies continue accumulating ETH exposure despite growing questions around direct value capture.
Hoffman framed his decision primarily as portfolio allocation rather than a bearish call on Ethereum itself. He emphasized that Ethereum’s ecosystem may continue thriving even if ETH no longer captures all of the economic expansion happening on top of the network.
At the time of reporting, ETH was trading near $2,100, remaining under pressure amid broader crypto market volatility.
