Web3 is bullish on Ethereum. Find out why below.
“Both retail traders and institutions are recognizing that the next evolution of crypto isn’t just holding or staking, it’s the ability to unlock liquidity and leverage across a permissionless landscape. The substantial inflows we’ve seen from asset managers and potential ETF issuers give expression to the growing perception of ETH as a bonafide yield-generating, programmable asset.
“Ethereum has certainly paved the way with rollups and liquid staking, but the real breakthrough comes when any token can be margin-traded, lent, or borrowed without intermediaries. Permissionless markets allow assets to remain productive, whether through yield-bearing derivatives, leveraged strategies, or on-chain credit markets. This shift is reshaping how capital efficiency works in DeFi, empowering users to stay liquid while putting their tokens to work.
“As asset managers and sophisticated traders lean in, we expect permissionless lending and margin trading to emerge as a core layer of on-chain finance, giving every token, from majors like ETH to emerging assets, the same programmable access to liquidity and leverage.”
– Sky, founder of LIKWID
“I’ve been an Ethereum bull since its literal birth: I remember when Vitalik first posted the idea on Bitcointalk. I aped into the ICO, defended it against the Bitcoin maximalists (on the original Ethereum community telegram page, which had a few hundred members!) who thought a programmable blockchain was pointless, and never looked back.
“Ethereum has been the basic settlement layer of crypto for years now. Its price often looks undervalued in the short term because the Ethereum Foundation tends to prioritize deep, decentralized technical work over flashy optics, but that’s exactly why it endures.
“Every cycle, ETH gets beaten down, only to resurge stronger. There’s no fundamental reason its long-term price trajectory shouldn’t reflect its status as crypto’s settlement backbone.”
– Dylan Dewdney, co-founder and CEO of Kuvi.ai
“In my view, Ethereum’s programmability has radically transformed the concept of currency, giving rise to digital dollars and stablecoins that now bring access to finance into the furthest corners of the unbanked world. Staking and DeFi introduced a new model for yield, lending and borrowing without barriers, while Ethereum’s trust framework ensures these systems can scale globally.
“What we are beginning to see with Agentic Finance takes this further, in that autonomous agents that can lend, borrow, trade, and coordinate liquidity across protocols in real time, turning Ethereum into a living, adaptive financial system. Over the coming decades, I believe this capability will become widely recognized as the natural evolution of global finance.
“Whether or not ETH reaches $10K by year’s end is secondary. Structurally, Ethereum has never looked stronger as the programmable core of permissionless and agent-driven finance.”
– Chris Anderson, CEO of ByteNova AI
“People keep asking if ETH can hit $10k this year, and for me, the move to that kind of level would need more than ETF inflows or some staking buzz. What actually matters is whether Ethereum cements itself as the settlement layer for stuff way bigger than DeFi as we know it. I’m talking tokenized assets, equities, real-world instruments, basically the stuff Wall Street lives on.”
“If you bring stocks or treasuries on-chain, you need lending markets so people can borrow against them, you need derivatives so funds can hedge, and you need all the rails that make traditional finance actually function. Without that, tokenized equities are just fancy wrappers sitting idle. With it, they become liquid, tradeable, and, honestly, way more efficient than what we’ve got now.”
“So ETH hitting $10k probably depends less on retail piling in again and more on institutions realizing they can run their entire playbook, lending, swaps, structured products, directly on Ethereum. If that clicks, the demand for blockspace and collateral could get stupidly high. If it doesn’t, then we’re just waiting on another speculative pump.”
– Hedy Wang, co-founder and CEO of Block Street
“While the crypto market is experiencing a sell-off after ETH hitting an all-time high over the weekend, the market returns for ETH have been eye-popping over the medium term.
“In the past month, ETH is up 17%, while Bitcoin is down 7% – and BTC dominance is weakening, now down to 58.6%. It seems that ETH is in price discovery territory now, despite the current short-term decline.
“So far, ETH’s relative performance has been largely driven by digital asset treasuries (DATs), which appear to be seeing Ethereum’s bright future. It’s the blockchain of choice for institutions exploring DeFi and Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization, and now, the European Union is considering Ethereum for its digital Euro project. The market is waking up to the utility of Ethereum as a blockchain and the huge opportunity this presents.
“On top of this, unlike Bitcoin, ETH isn’t just about capital appreciation – it allows holders to earn yield from staking the token. It’s a very compelling proposition for old BTC holders and digital asset companies, and could shed some light on why some BTC whales have rotated some $2 billion into ETH over just the last few days – and counting.
“Finally, adding a potential Fed interest rate cut opens up retail capital, which will only add to the fiery demand for ETH. Combined, this could soon send sub-$5,000 ETH into history.”
– Kevin Rusher, founder of RAAC