Wall Street piles into Ethereum as stablecoins are greenlit and RWAs expand

Key Points

1. Ethereum's price surged 23% in a week, outperforming Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, though it remains below its all-time high of $4,855.

2. Ethereum's appeal now lies in its alignment with traditional finance (TradFi) through stablecoins and RWAs, moving beyond its earlier focus on NFTs and DeFi.

3. Stablecoin adoption has grown 60x since 2020, with Ethereum hosting over 54% of all stablecoins, which are increasingly used as financial instruments.

4. ETH is seen as a reserve asset, offering collateral, settlement, and yield, with potential to capture part of the $500 trillion global store-of-value market.

5. Fidelity's report frames Ethereum as a sovereign digital economy, where ETH serves as both a medium of exchange and a store of value.

6. Ethereum's 'digital oil' analogy highlights its dual role as a yield-bearing asset and a utility token powering DeFi and computation, with capped issuance at 1.51% annually.

7. Ethereum's fee revenue has declined due to scaling efforts, but this is viewed as a strategic move to expand its market and long-term value.