Over the past week, the company added almost 10,000 ETH, bringing its holdings to 5.79 million Ether, of which approximately 85% is staked through validator operations.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies said on Monday it held 5.79 million Ether, or about 4.8% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply, after purchasing nearly 10,000 ETH last week.

Bitmine disclosed that approximately 4.9 million ETH (ETH), or approximately 85% of its holdings, are staked through its validator operations. The company projected annual staking rewards of approximately $299 million once all of its Ether was deployed to staking infrastructure and partner validators. As of July 26, the company’s total holdings of cryptocurrencies, cash and marketable securities are $11.8 billion.

The latest purchases come after Ether outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) last week. According to CoinGecko, ETH has gained about 2.4% over the last seven days, while Bitcoin has fallen about 0.7%. data. In Monday’s announcement, Bitmine CEO Tom Lee said the rising ETH/BTC ratio, which he described as the highest in three months, signals strengthening Ether momentum.

Bitcoin and ETH performance over the last seven days. Source: CoinGecko

Bitmine has built the world’s largest corporate Ether vault, second only to Strategic among public companies in terms of the value of digital assets held. However, Bitmine’s accumulation strategy has recently diverged from a strategy that has halted Bitcoin purchases in recent weeks.

On Monday, Strategy announced that it had raised $544.5 million from a stock sale, repurchased $25 million of STRC preferred stock and increased its US dollar reserve to $3.75 billion while maintaining its holding of 843,775 BTC.

Warehouse: Quantum Roadmap Would Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards

Cointelegraph is committed to independent and crystal clear journalism. This news article has been produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended to provide exact and up-to-date information. Readers are encouraged to verify the information themselves.

Cryptocurrency losses exceeded $1 billion in the first half of 2026 as the industry saw the highest number of hacks in six months, according to onchain security platform Blockaid.

Ethereum and Solana recorded the largest losses from incidents affecting their networks, with approximately $332 million and $326 million in stolen funds, respectively, Blockaid said in its H1 2026 security report released Tuesday.

During this period, Blockaid tracked 212 security incidents, with the largest single exploit coming from KelpDAO worth $292 million, while the platform verified 3.4 times more high-threshold exploits in the first half of 2026 than in all of 2025.

The report found that code exploits were the cause of incidents on Ethereum, while breaches of keys and signing infrastructure caused most of the losses at Solana.

Ethereum’s losses reflected the risks associated with high-value protocols

Ethereum suffered the most losses from incidents in the first half of 2026, with attackers mainly targeting vulnerabilities in applications built on the network.

Blockaid stated that the code exploits Ethereum’s incident-dominated volume, and the main losses are also related to key compromises involving the Humanity Protocol and StablR. CoWSwap, an Ethereum-based decentralized exchange, was the only major Ethereum incident in the report classified as user error.

Blockchain losses according to the network in the first half of 2026. Source: Blockaid.

Blockaid has identified several common attack methods targeting Ethereum, including bridge and astute contract flaws, unauthorized access to privileged accounts, and market manipulation techniques.

The report points out that Ethereum remains a top target because it powers many of the crypto industry’s most valuable applications, including retaking platforms, stablecoins, and decentralized exchanges.

Solana’s losses increased as the attackers changed focus

Solana suffered almost the same losses as Ethereum in the first half of 2026, a acute raise from the approximately $127 million in stolen funds the network recorded in 2025.

“In 2025, losses of $2.58 billion from 63 incidents, including $1.5 billion in the first quarter Bybit, with Ethereum and Arbitrum being the largest networks in terms of flow of stolen funds,” Blockaid CEO Ido Ben-Natan told Cointelegraph.

Blockchain losses by network in 2025. Source: Blockaid.

The change was not due to an raise in astute contract exploits. Instead, the compromised keys accounted for more than 98% of Solana’s losses, mainly caused by incidents involving Drift Protocol and Step Finance, which Blockaid linked to North Korea-linked cyber groups.

Unlike Ethereum, where attackers mainly exploited vulnerabilities in the protocol code, the Solana incidents targeted signer infrastructure and organizational security, with several code exploits involving Raydium and Volo responsible for the remaining losses.

Warehouse: Quantum Roadmap Would Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards

Cointelegraph is committed to independent and see-through journalism. This news article has been produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended to provide right and up-to-date information. Readers are encouraged to verify the information themselves.

US-listed Ethereum spot funds (ETFs) recorded net outflows of $70.62 million on Friday, ending a five-day streak of inflows.

According to SoSoValue, Ethereum funds saw net inflows of $211.25 million over the previous five sessions from July 17 to Thursday data. They still reported net inflows of $103.9 million for the week ended Friday.

Despite outflows, Ethereum ETFs extended their streak of weekly inflows to three in a row and have attracted $337.74 million in net inflows so far in July.

Spot cryptocurrency ETF flows have become one of the market’s most closely watched indicators of demand for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) via classic investment products.

While other jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, have launched similar funds, US-listed ETFs account for the huge majority of assets and trading volumes.

Ethereum ETF net daily spot flows from July 17-24. Source: SoSoValue

Bitcoin ETFs also end the week with outflows

The reversal was similar for Bitcoin ETFs, which ended a seven-day streak of inflows on Thursday and posted another net outflow of $240.08 million on Friday.

Bitcoin ETFs also extended their streak of net inflows to three consecutive weeks, adding $103.90 million in the week ended Friday and $233.96 million so far in July. They followed a record June, when $4.5 billion flowed out of funds.

BTC was trading just under $64,000 at the time of writing, down from a weekly high of $66,892 on Tuesday, according to data. CoinGecko. ETH was trading at $1,837, down from Wednesday’s weekly high of $1,954.

Related: Bitcoin falls below 64 thousand dollars, as rising US bond yields boost the risk of the Fed raising interest rates

Japanese Crypto Reforms Drive $18.4 Billion Bitcoin ETF Forecast

Following a recent change in Japanese cryptocurrency regulations that is widely seen as laying the groundwork for future spot Bitcoin ETFs, cryptocurrency management platform XWIN has estimated that the mature Japanese spot Bitcoin ETF market could reach approximately $18.4 billion, representing roughly 0.13% of the country’s $14.6 trillion in financial assets.

In analysis published on CryptoQuant, XWIN said the estimates assume demand from existing cryptocurrency holders, up-to-date retail investors using brokerage accounts and institutional allocators.

The report pointed to the U.S. market as an example, noting that spot Bitcoin ETFs, excluding Grayscale’s GBTC, have accumulated approximately 1 million Bitcoin, demonstrating how regulated ETF products can combine classic finance with digital assets.

“Access is the key,” XWIN said, adding that a Japanese spot Bitcoin ETF would enable investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin through established brokerage and custody systems. He characterized the $18.4 billion figure as an “attainable, high-end market scenario.”

Magazine: Quantum Roadmap Would Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards

Ether is becoming more and more attractive from a valuation standpoint, especially compared to Bitcoin, but onchain data suggests that the market has yet to reach a final cycle bottom, according to CryptoQuant.

In its latest weekly report, the analytics firm reported that Ether (ETH) is trading approximately 17% below its realized price, which is the average cost of acquiring all ETH circulating on the network, which is approximately $2,300. Historically, ETH trading below the realized price has coincided with periods of market undervaluation and long-term lows.

Ether is also showing signs of improvement compared to Bitcoin (BTC). CryptoQuant said ETH’s market value to realized value (MVRV) ratio has retreated from extreme overvaluation, exchange inflows have declined, ETF holdings have begun to recover from months of weakness, and ETH/BTC spot volumes have fallen to a range historically associated with market lows.

CryptoQuant claims that two of the five key ETH low indicators have been confirmed. Source: CryptoQuant

Despite this, only two of CryptoQuant’s five lows have reached historic reversal levels. The remaining indicators are improving but have not yet reached the extremes that marked the lows of the previous cycle, suggesting that a bottom for Ethereum may still be forming.

The report comes as Ether briefly climbed above $1,950 this week and Bitcoin breached $67,000, buoyed by optimism around the US CLARITY Act. At the same time, some market analysts have pointed to the potential for capital rotation from highly valued AI stocks back to cryptocurrencies, which could further support Ether if risk appetite increases.

The ETH/BTC MVRV ratio dropped from almost 0.95 in August 2025 to around 0.65, signaling that Ethereum has become significantly cheaper relative to Bitcoin. Source: CryptoQuant

Related: Grayscale plans regular cash payouts from ETH and SOL staking rewards

The supply of Ethereum increases as currencies flow out and rates enhance

Over the past month, Ethereum has shown several constructive onchain signals. During the week of June 29, withdrawal activity on Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, reached its highest level in over three years.

Analysts generally interpret continued exchange outflows as a sign that investors are taking assets into custody or stationing them rather than holding them on exchanges for potential sale, although such flows do not guarantee accumulation.

Meanwhile, according to Staking Rewards, a record 34% of Ethereum’s circulating supply is currently staked. As Cointelegraph previously reported, higher staking reduces the amount of ETH readily available for trading, potentially reducing near-term selling pressure if demand remains resilient.

Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest corporate holder of ETH, continues to accumulate ETH, increasing its holdings by 325,000 ETH in one month, despite enormous unrealized losses. He set a goal of owning 5% of the second largest cryptocurrency.

Related: Will the US get CLARITY this week? Bitcoin’s fresh target of 80,000 dollars: Hodler’s Digest, July 19

Key takeaways:

• Despite ETH price gains, tender network activity and low DEX volumes signal trader caution.
• Ethereum’s record 34% staking reduces selling pressure, but sustained growth requires external catalysts.

Ether (ETH) tested the $1,950 level for the first time in seven weeks on Tuesday, triggering the liquidation of $62 million in leveraged bearish positions. The move provided a 29% gain from the June 26 low of $1,500 and was in line with the broader risk-on sentiment that pushed Bitcoin (BTC) above $66,500. Can ETH exceed $2,100?

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization (left) vs. ETH/USD. Source: TradingView

The ether price largely followed the general trend in the cryptocurrency market, which achieved positive dynamics in July. Tuesday’s gains in the U.S. stock market helped ease investor concerns about inflated valuations following a rally in artificial intelligence stocks. Traders expect solid corporate earnings after 3M (MMM US) reported earnings on Tuesday morning.

Google parent Alphabet is expected to report quarterly results on Wednesday, after U.S. markets close. Investors expect a 64% enhance in cloud revenues due to ponderous investments in artificial intelligence. Sturdy gains could restore confidence and lend a hand push the cryptocurrency market beyond the $2 trillion mark in total capitalization.

Ethereum onchain metrics remain tender and ETH derivatives remain muted

Despite recent ETH price increases, Ethereum onchain metrics are showing stagnation. Demand for blockchain processing has not returned to the levels seen six months ago, partly because investors are showing less interest in memecoins and utility tokens. Some of Ethereum’s top projects have seen losses of 50% or more year-to-date, including Ethena (ENA), Mantle (MNT), and Arbitrum (ARB).

Weekly DEX volumes and revenues from DApps on the Ethereum network, USD. source: DefiLlama

Weekly revenue from Ethereum decentralized applications (DApps) fell to its lowest level since September 2024, reaching $9.8 million. The strongest performers included Sky (formerly MakerDAO), with weekly revenue of $3.2 million, and Chainlink, which earned $1.2 million during the same period. Overall, decentralized currency exchange (DEX) volume dropped to $7.2 billion per week.

Ethereum’s tender supply chain data reflects subdued sentiment in derivatives markets.

ETH perpetual futures annual funding rate. source: Laevitas

Over the past month, the annual funding rate for ETH perpetual futures has struggled to stay in the neutral 6-12% range. Still, sentiment improved from the negative interest rates seen in overdue June, reflecting sturdy bearish demand. The growing interest in staking in Ethereum has likely increased investor expectations for price gains and reduced downside risk.

Ethereum staking data. Source: StakingRewards

According to Staking Rewards data, a record 34% of the total ETH supply is currently staked, up from 33% a month earlier. Analysts expect reduced selling pressure as long-term holders continue to build up supply, including Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion (BMNR US), which added 156,719 ETH over the past month. The company currently controls 4.8% of the available supply.

ETH’s price is 61% below its all-time high in August 2025, which helps explain why bulls lack enthusiasm in derivatives markets. Supple on-chain metrics and a six-month bear market have left investors skeptical about sustained gains.

Ether’s path to $2,100 likely hinges on reduced risk aversion in markets, which makes Google’s earnings guidance on Wednesday particularly critical.

According to former Ethereum insiders, money is running out.

The warning sparked one of the fiercest debates about Ethereum governance in months: Should the network fund developers by taxing staking rewards, or simply rely on wealthy Ethereum holders to fund its ecosystem?

At the center of the debate is a controversial proposal from Kleros co-founder Clément Lesaege. He suggested redirecting up to 10% of validator rewards to fund the ecosystem through a protocol-level mechanism called Validator Redirected Revenue.

Lesaege argued that this may be necessary to address Ethereum’s “lack of coordination” and reduce the underfunding of the shared ecosystem’s work.

The idea was met with a backlash, with critics warning of cartel-like incentives and a hazardous precedent for validator-led redistribution.

Proposal to divert revenue from the validator. Source: Et research

But just as the Ethereum community was sharpening its knives, “credibly neutral” solution created by: Ethlabs.

Discovered on Monday by five former Ethereum Foundation researchers, the shiny non-profit Ethereum R&D lab is backed by some of the ecosystem’s biggest supporters, including BitMine, Sharplink and ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin.

Related: Ethereum Foundation lays off 20% of workforce in strategic restructuring

With huge investors willing to dip into their pockets, the real question becomes less whether Ethereum can fund itself and more about how it wants to be funded.

Ethereum’s “Slowly Financing Crisis”.

ETH’s latest drama began on Friday when former Ethereum Foundation contributor Trenton Van Epps warned that Ethereum’s core development ecosystem could face a “slow-motion funding crisis” within three to nine months as legacy support programs parched up and the Foundation’s spending declines.

He estimated that it costs about $30 million a year to maintain more than 10 client, research and coordination teams, and the Client Incentive Program and other support mechanisms are no longer enough to cover that bill.

Van Epps argued that Ethereum is entering an institutional “legacy” phase in which the Foundation will no longer be the primary funder for the protocols and that up-to-date arrangements must replace the expiring programs it helped coordinate.

After spending much of the year dealing with leadership changes, public criticism of priorities and growing debate over funding for core protocols, Van Epps’ warning touched a sensitive nerve.

But some Ethereum votes pushed awayarguing that the EF has “sufficient resources to operate for at least 30 years, so we are facing a zero-funding crisis.” Bitmine’s Tom Lee also dismissed the warning, saying there was “zero chance” Ethereum would run out of funds to develop the protocol.

Etherum Foundation’s treasury policy. Source: Ethereum Foundation

The Ethereum Foundation’s own treasury policy already indicates a multi-year operating buffer and a planned reduction in annual expenses.

In June 2025, EF he said would maintain a 2.5-year operational spending buffer in cash and stablecoins, commit to limiting annual spending to 15% of total treasury assets and gradually reduce that spending rate to a baseline of 5% over five years.

Related: Ethereum can provide quantum bills for as little as 7 cents, says Kohaku leader on Ethereum

On Tuesday, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin he said The foundation, in line with this policy, is reducing its budget by approximately 40%, moving from disbursing approximately 15% of funds annually before 2026 to a long-term goal of approximately 5% annually after 2030. It has laid off 54 employees.

The proposition that everyone hates

So the foundation may not run out of money, but it is tightening its belt and has much less money to spend on research and development than in its heyday. Lesaege argued that Ethereum suffers from a lack of coordination whereby everyone uses a shared infrastructure but no one wants to pay the bills.

His proposal would require validators to signal how much of the staking rewards they are willing to divert, ranging from 0% to 10%. If a majority of validators supported non-zero bidding, redirection would become mandatory for everyone.

He estimated that at current rate levels, even a 5-10% diversion could generate around 50,000-70,000 ETH per year for ecosystem work, or around $82.5-115.5 million at today’s current ETH prices.

Incentive to finance Ethereum development. Source: Et research

Critics were quick to focus on the mechanism’s dynamics, warning that it could entrench huge approvers, blur the line between operators and managers, and give a weighted majority majority up-to-date influence over ecosystem financing decisions.

What staking providers say

A Figment spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the proposal would reduce margins, which “typically consolidates the validator towards larger, more integrated operators” serving institutional clients like Figment.

This would come “at the expense of some operator diversity and potentially fewer net new players on ETH,” the spokesperson said.

Andrew Gibb, CEO and co-founder of institutional staking firm Twinstake, told Cointelegraph that different segments of investors will react differently.

While long-term ETH holders may value the prospect of a better-funded ecosystem, short-term capital such as retail participants, liquid multi-asset funds and reward-focused allocators may be less receptive.

He said the proposal would “narrow the target rate market at the margin”, with the most price-sensitive cohorts likely to “reduce or exit positions”, adding that he expected some customers to re-evaluate their rate allocations.

Related: Buterin blasts critics of the Ethereum Foundation and recommits to neutrality

Bitwise senior research fellow Max Shannon told Cointelegraph that Ethereum staking has so far shown narrow sensitivity to lower rewards.

He said the annual percentage rate (APR) has fallen from about 4.6% in June 2023 to about 2.7% currently, while the rate supply and rate ratio have roughly doubled. However, additional reward compression would make “mitigation risk and exit queue liquidity risk more important relative to return.”

He added that the lower net yield of the consensus layer could lead reviewers to rely more on maximum extractable value (MEV) to make up for lost APR, which could potentially weigh on censorship resistance.

How large is the problem, really?

On paper, the funding gap isn’t that large. Shannon noted that if the annual shortfall is around $30 million and annual staking rewards are around $1.9 billion, the gap could be filled with just 1.6% of staking rewards.

This makes Lesaege’s proposal look modest, although it remains politically radioactive. From an economic perspective, a single-digit reduction in staking rewards is possible. In terms of governance, many Ethereum participants see this as a boundary-crossing move that turns validators into a tax authority.

Shannon also argued that networks with hard-coded development funding are not necessarily better off just because they allocate rewards. In his view, the success of the protocol depends much more on token performance and incentives for authors than on any developer funding mechanism.

A up-to-date financing model is emerging

Tom Lee comment the risk of an Ethereum funding crisis was “zero” and the funds were “secured,” foreshadowing the unveiling of the up-to-date nonprofit EthLabs a few days later.

Instead of taxing rewards at the protocol level, Ethlabs allows huge institutions that work with ETH, such as BitMine and Sharplink, to directly fund development.

Non-profit Ethlabs Research and Development for Ethereum. Source: Ethlabs

It does not replace the Ethereum Foundation, but complements it. EthLabs is signaling that the next phase of the sharp contract platform may include a more distributed funding model in which EF remains central to the core of the protocol, while other labs and treasury-heavy institutions fund related work.

WX post on Monday, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin said the Ethereum Foundation still has a “tremendous amount of top-notch talent” who continue to focus on the “core cypherpunk components” of the protocol. However, he added that many other Ethereum R&D teams will now explore other dimensions.

Gibb said the responsibility for funding ecosystem development rests with foundations and protocol treasuries. He added that there are alternative mechanisms that should be explored, such as staking viability or priority fees, “before making changes to the validator economics at the protocol level.”

Time will tell whether Ethlabs will be sufficient. However, its emergence has already shifted the debate from how Ethereum should be taxed to whether it is needed at all.

Market movements: Why is the Ethereum Foundation selling? BTC Futures Warning Signs

The explosive launch of Robinhood Chain this month has reignited one of Ethereum’s longest-running debates: Do successful Layer 2 networks drive demand for ETH, the asset, or do modern entrants capture all the value for themselves?

The retail brokerage’s Arbitrum-based Ethereum L2 has become one of the busiest Ethereum holdings since its July 1 launch.

Over $141 million in ether was added to the chain in the first two weeks. DeFiLlama data shows that over half a million wallets currently hold ETH on the network, and the memecoin craze has caused Robinhood Chain to surpass Coinbase’s Ethereum L1 and Base L2 in 24-hour DEX trading volume.

Ether boosted this news, gaining about 15% from $1,582 on July 1 to $1,825 on July 13, According to to Coingecko data after a wave of bullish comments.

Eric Trump of World Liberty Financial sent July 11: “ETH is pumping hard! Good to see!” while Tom Lee, president of BitMine Immersion Technologies, he argued the launch reinforces the thesis that “ETH is money,” pointing to the asset’s role as the network’s native gas token and the L2 last resort on the Ethereum mainnet.

Ethereum investors have heard similar arguments before.

Related: Robinhood L2 sparks optimism in ETH, Saylor ‘muddies the water’. Hodler Review, July 5–12, 2026

Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base drove waves of users and activity into Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem, but failed to significantly impact the price of Ether as most of the economic activity remained in the bundles themselves.

Robinhood Chain’s launch is likely different. Unlike previous omnibuses built by crypto firms, the network was developed by a publicly traded retail brokerage with tens of millions of customers to support tokenized stocks and other real-world assets.

Just a few days after the premiere settled according to Token Terminal data for 6.9% of all tokenized shareholders.

Ether Price Reaction to Robinhood Chain Launch. source: Coingecko

And if Robinhood’s model is successful, it could encourage banks, brokers and asset managers to build their own L2s and cement Ethereum as the default blockchain for TradFi. Deutsche Bank is already in the process of building a ZK-based Ethereum L2 called DAMA 2, focused on institutional finance.

Why Robinhood could be a turning point

Ethereum L2 networks utilize rollup technology to process transactions off the Ethereum mainchain and periodically settle them back to the network. Robinhood Chain uses Arbitrum technology and is compatible with the broader Ethereum ecosystem.

However, what has caught the industry’s attention is not the technology itself, but who is using it.

“This is a real milestone,” Alex Głuchowski, founder and CEO of Matter Labs, creator of Ethereum L2 zkSync, told Cointelegraph.

“This shows that Ethereum L2 has gone from something crypto teams experiment with to the infrastructure on which a regulated, publicly traded company will run its business.”

Instead of building the blockchain from scratch, as Stripe chose to do with Tempo, Robinhood chose to customize the Ethereum stack to meet its own needs “for privacy, compliance, and performance, while inheriting Ethereum’s security and connecting to its liquidity,” he added.

Max Shannon, senior research analyst at Bitwise, told Cointelegraph that Robinhood Chain’s success is more significant than previous L2 implementations.

“It represents the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem, especially among mainstream institutions,” he said. “This is also a time when Ethereum has more broadly repositioned itself towards institutions through Eth Labs and Ethereum Institutional.”

Does Robinhood Chain Change the Investment Case for ETH?

For Shannon, the launch of Robinhood strengthens the investment case for Ethereum as it strengthens the network’s position as the leading blockchain for institutional adoption.

He said ETH has the “network characteristics” to become a reserve asset for the growing L2 institutional network. However, like many, he believes that Ethereum’s tokenomics need to be improved so that increased network activity is more clearly reflected in ETH demand.

Ethereum has often been criticized for its decision to lower L2 fees as a way to drive adoption and achieve network effects. Ark Invest’s Lorenzo Valente published on July 14 that Robinhood Chain has generated $816,000 in revenue since launch, with Arbitrum taking a 10% cut, but only 0.15% of the total returned to Ethereum.

“If your thesis is ‘ETH is money,’ building Robinhood here is extremely bullish. More activity, more ETH collateral, more lindy. If your thesis is ‘ETH is an income-producing asset,’ then it’s an ultra-bear case.”

GrowThePie claimed that Valente’s figures for Eth’s share of revenue were overstated by a factor of four and argued that “0.6% of revenue is the correct number.” However, even a higher number is not a significant driver of L1 revenue. Robinhood Chain generated more gas fees than any other L2 last week, but Ethereum only saw $4,400 of that.

Source: MatzoGrowThePie

Glukhovsky said that ETH appreciation will not be based on fee revenue, but will likely be driven by ETH becoming widely accepted money in L2 ecosystems.

“People may pay fees in stablecoins or not think about gas at all,” he said. “But as more and more value flows through Ethereum, ETH is starting to look less like a fee token and more like an underlying monetary asset for this system.”

Related: Robinhood says its AI agent feature will “soon” facilitate cryptocurrency traders

Even ETH bears like Mike Dudas of 6th Man Ventures have this described Robinhood chain as “the bullishest thing I’ve seen in eth-land in years.”

But when Dudas saw Valente’s post, he did it in addition with the caveat that “Eth boiled unless ‘eth is money’ takes off or l1 settlement price increases.”

There remains the issue of accruing value

While Robinhood’s success may have strengthened the case for Ethereum’s scaling strategy, it hasn’t yet resolved one of the network’s biggest unanswered questions: How does growing L2 activity ultimately translate into value for ETH?

Shannon said that recent updates such as Fusaka have improved Ethereum’s scalability, but even though transaction activity has reached record levels, demand has yet to translate into significantly higher fees or increased ETH burn.

“Robinhood isn’t going to solve this problem,” Shannon said, and the collective development of L2 probably isn’t going to solve it either… It requires a complete shift in developer thinking and the economics of ETH tokens.

Another uncertainty is how much ETH institutional users will actually own directly. As tokenized stocks and other RWA assets increasingly trade on stablecoins, many users rarely interact with ETH, even though it underpins the network behind the scenes.

Robinhood may have shown that a immense financial institution is willing to rely on Ethereum infrastructure, but it is unclear whether this will ultimately translate into greater demand for ETH.

Warehouse The hated Ethereum staking “tax” may already be obsolete

The explosive launch of Robinhood Chain this month has reignited one of Ethereum’s longest-running debates: Do successful Layer 2 networks drive demand for ETH, the asset, or do up-to-date entrants capture all the value for themselves?

The retail brokerage’s Arbitrum-based Ethereum L2 has become one of the busiest Ethereum holdings since its July 1 launch.

Over $141 million in ether was added to the chain in the first two weeks. DeFiLlama data shows that over half a million wallets currently hold ETH on the network, and the memecoin craze has caused Robinhood Chain to surpass Coinbase’s Ethereum L1 and Base L2 in 24-hour DEX trading volume.

Ether boosted this news, gaining about 15% from $1,582 on July 1 to $1,825 on July 13, According to to Coingecko data after a wave of bullish comments.

Eric Trump of World Liberty Financial sent July 11: “ETH is pumping hard! Good to see!” while Tom Lee, president of BitMine Immersion Technologies, he argued the launch reinforces the thesis that “ETH is money,” pointing to the asset’s role as the network’s native gas token and the L2 last resort on the Ethereum mainnet.

Ethereum investors have heard similar arguments before.

Related: Robinhood L2 sparks optimism in ETH, Saylor ‘muddies the water’. Hodler Review, July 5–12, 2026

Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base drove waves of users and activity into Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem, but failed to significantly impact the price of Ether as most of the economic activity remained in the bundles themselves.

Robinhood Chain’s launch is likely different. Unlike previous omnibuses built by crypto firms, the network was developed by a publicly traded retail brokerage with tens of millions of customers to support tokenized stocks and other real-world assets.

Just a few days after the premiere settled according to Token Terminal data for 6.9% of all tokenized shareholders.

Ether Price Reaction to Robinhood Chain Launch. source: Coingecko

And if Robinhood’s model is successful, it could encourage banks, brokers and asset managers to build their own L2s and cement Ethereum as the default blockchain for TradFi. Deutsche Bank is already in the process of building a ZK-based Ethereum L2 called DAMA 2, focused on institutional finance.

Why Robinhood could be a turning point

Ethereum L2 networks apply rollup technology to process transactions off the Ethereum mainchain and periodically settle them back to the network. Robinhood Chain uses Arbitrum technology and is compatible with the broader Ethereum ecosystem.

However, what has caught the industry’s attention is not the technology itself, but who is using it.

“This is a real milestone,” Alex Głuchowski, founder and CEO of Matter Labs, creator of Ethereum L2 zkSync, told Cointelegraph.

“This shows that Ethereum L2 has gone from something crypto teams experiment with to the infrastructure on which a regulated, publicly traded company will run its business.”

Instead of building the blockchain from scratch, as Stripe chose to do with Tempo, Robinhood chose to customize the Ethereum stack to meet its own needs “for privacy, compliance, and performance, while inheriting Ethereum’s security and connecting to its liquidity,” he added.

Max Shannon, senior research analyst at Bitwise, told Cointelegraph that Robinhood Chain’s success is more significant than previous L2 implementations.

“It represents the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem, especially among mainstream institutions,” he said. “This is also a time when Ethereum has more broadly repositioned itself towards institutions through Eth Labs and Ethereum Institutional.”

Does Robinhood Chain Change the Investment Case for ETH?

For Shannon, the launch of Robinhood strengthens the investment case for Ethereum as it strengthens the network’s position as the leading blockchain for institutional adoption.

He said ETH has the “network characteristics” to become a reserve asset for the growing L2 institutional network. However, like many, he believes that Ethereum’s tokenomics need to be improved so that increased network activity is more clearly reflected in ETH demand.

Ethereum has often been criticized for its decision to lower L2 fees as a way to drive adoption and achieve network effects. Ark Invest’s Lorenzo Valente published on July 14 that Robinhood Chain has generated $816,000 in revenue since launch, with Arbitrum taking a 10% cut, but only 0.15% of the total returned to Ethereum.

“If your thesis is ‘ETH is money,’ building Robinhood here is extremely bullish. More activity, more ETH collateral, more lindy. If your thesis is ‘ETH is an income-producing asset,’ then it’s an ultra-bear case.”

GrowThePie claimed that Valente’s figures for Eth’s share of revenue were overstated by a factor of four and argued that “0.6% of revenue is the correct number.” However, even a higher number is not a significant driver of L1 revenue. Robinhood Chain generated more gas fees than any other L2 last week, but Ethereum only saw $4,400 of that.

Source: MatzoGrowThePie

Glukhovsky said that ETH appreciation will not be based on fee revenue, but will likely be driven by ETH becoming widely accepted money in L2 ecosystems.

“People may pay fees in stablecoins or not think about gas at all,” he said. “But as more and more value flows through Ethereum, ETH is starting to look less like a fee token and more like an underlying monetary asset for this system.”

Related: Robinhood says its AI agent feature will “soon” assist cryptocurrency traders

Even ETH bears like Mike Dudas of 6th Man Ventures have this described Robinhood chain as “the bullishest thing I’ve seen in eth-land in years.”

But when Dudas saw Valente’s post, he did it in addition with the caveat that “Eth boiled unless ‘eth is money’ takes off or l1 settlement price increases.”

There remains the issue of accruing value

While Robinhood’s success may have strengthened the case for Ethereum’s scaling strategy, it hasn’t yet resolved one of the network’s biggest unanswered questions: How does growing L2 activity ultimately translate into value for ETH?

Shannon said that recent updates such as Fusaka have improved Ethereum’s scalability, but even though transaction activity has reached record levels, demand has yet to translate into significantly higher fees or increased ETH burn.

“Robinhood isn’t going to solve this problem,” Shannon said, and the collective development of L2 probably isn’t going to solve it either… It requires a complete shift in developer thinking and the economics of ETH tokens.

Another uncertainty is how much ETH institutional users will actually own directly. As tokenized stocks and other RWA assets increasingly trade on stablecoins, many users rarely interact with ETH, even though it underpins the network behind the scenes.

Robinhood may have shown that a immense financial institution is willing to rely on Ethereum infrastructure, but it is unclear whether this will ultimately translate into greater demand for ETH.

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