Author: Sam Tabar

Compiled by: Jia Huan, ChainCatcher

I bought more ETH.

It wasn't because of cycles, nor because of narratives. I examined the data, researched the asset, and determined that its pricing was flawed. When I see a pricing error, I take action.

But this decision deserves more than just a tweet. The various questions it raises deserve our sincere discussion.

Using "currency" as a framework is a mistake.

The argument that "ETH is money" represents the grandest vision for the future development of Ethereum. I can understand its appeal. Money is a coordinated game that requires an extremely large and enduring consensus of belief, large enough to be self-fulfilling.

Bitcoin is participating in this game, and in order to win, it has stripped away all other attributes.

In contrast, Ethereum chose practicality.

This choice means that ETH cannot win the monetary coordination game like Bitcoin has. But it also means that Ethereum has built something that Bitcoin never attempted: a programmable settlement layer, on which the whole world is now actively building.

This is a completely different asset with a different value proposition. To measure it using monetary logic and call it a failure is like scoring a railway based on whether it can become a quality currency.

The value has been realized.

The most common criticism I hear is that Ethereum's coordination challenges across the underlying layer, L2, developers, and the market have created an ecosystem fragmentation, causing ETH to miss its moment of glory.

This argument has some merit. However, institutional capital doesn't need Ethereum to win any narrative wars. What it needs is a reliable, battle-tested, programmable settlement layer. Stablecoins are being issued on Ethereum. US Treasury bonds are being tokenized on Ethereum. Transactions by AI agents are also beginning to be settled on Ethereum.

All of this doesn't need to wait for a narrative consensus. It's already happening.

When I decided to build around Ethereum, my logic was very straightforward: WhiteFiber provides our computation layer. ETH provides our settlement track. Computation and settlement are the two core building blocks needed for institutional finance to migrate on-chain.

Currently, Ethereum is the only place that possesses both of these characteristics and has achieved scale.

The story may still be unfolding. But the track is already in use.

Betting is not wrong, the timing is wrong.

Many people have looked at the price of ETH over the past two years and concluded that this trade is over. I think they're focusing on the wrong catalyst.

Valuation reassessments will never stem from retail investors' fascination with narratives, which remains a fragile foundation for an asset with such a massive underlying infrastructure. The real catalyst is institutional demand, and institutional demand doesn't operate according to the timeline on crypto Twitter.

It will only proceed when the compliance framework is in place, the custody track is in place, and the regulatory environment is stable enough to warrant the CFO's signature.

That moment is much closer than what current prices reflect.

Why did I buy?

I want to make one point very clearly. I hold ETH because I have a fiduciary duty to make informed capital allocation decisions, and at the price I bought it, ETH met that standard.

Leaving aside all the narratives, the essence of this asset is: it generates income. Our gross margin for pledged assets reached 94.7% in the first quarter. This is a business, not just a vision.

It provides security for the world’s leading smart contract platform, which processed trillions of dollars in transactions last year and continues to increase institutional transaction volume every quarter. Moreover, I believe its transaction prices are significantly discounted compared to the actual value of the infrastructure it powers.

I don't need ETH to become the world's reserve currency to own it. I just need it to stay the way it is and continue doing what it's doing.

That alone is enough for me to buy. Similarly, it's enough for me to continue holding.