Market sentiment has recently plummeted. The debate between bulls and bears over ETH is a bellwether event: Bankless co-founder David Hoffman publicly disclosed that he has liquidated all his ETH holdings.
Conversely, some institutions are increasing their holdings against the trend. Tom Lee's BitMine has been continuously buying ETH recently and has elevated ETH to a core part of the company's strategy.
On one hand, long-term evangelists are liquidating their ETH holdings, while on the other hand, listed companies and institutional funds are continuing to increase their ETH holdings. Is ETH losing its value capture ability, or is it ushering in a new round of institutional revaluation? Biteye has compiled the bullish and bearish viewpoints for you 👇
🌟Looking bullish
Those who are bullish do not deny that ETH's short-term performance is weak, but also acknowledge that the market is re-evaluating the issue of ETH's value capture.
However, they believe that the core logic of ETH has not been broken.
Whether it's stablecoins, RWA, DeFi, L2, institutional tokenization, or agentic AI, many new financial activities still require a secure, neutral, and composable underlying network. And Ethereum remains the most important candidate.
Therefore, the bulls are not betting on a short-term fee rebound, but rather that ETH will be reintegrated into the pricing framework of institutions and long-term funds as on-chain finance continues to expand.
1️⃣Tom Lee@fundstrat｜BitMine CEO｜XHunt Ranking: 202
Key takeaways: The short-term decline is noise; ETH will strengthen in 2026 due to the structural drivers of tokenization and agentic AI. He maintains his end-2025 target of $7,000-$15,000, stating that "ETH thesis not broken."
More importantly, Tom Lee wasn't just making calls; he was continuously buying ETH through BitMine.
BitMine made its latest purchase of approximately 26,497 ETH on June 2, worth about $52 million. In the week ending May, BitMine had already purchased a total of 111,942 ETH, worth about $237 million, which was one of the largest single-week purchases since 2026.
BitMine's goal is to hold 5% of the circulating supply of ETH, and it is currently close to achieving that goal.
2️⃣Raoul Pal @RaoulGMI｜Real Vision CEO｜XHunt Ranking: 45
Key takeaway: Ethereum (ETH) is one of the underlying operating systems of the on-chain economy. Raoul Pal's logic is not about short-term price, but about network value: if Ethereum were shut down today, a large number of economic activities such as Layer 2, DeFi, NFTs, and RWAs would be severely impacted, therefore ETH's current valuation may still be undervalued.
3️⃣ Ryan Sean Adams @RyanSAdams｜Co-founder of Bankless｜XHunt Ranking: 115
Key takeaway: I disagree with David Hoffman's assessment that he has liquidated all his ETH holdings. Ryan's view is more "cautiously bullish": he acknowledges that the window of opportunity for ETH has narrowed, but he doesn't believe that ETH's long-term potential has ended.
After David Hoffman sold all his ETH, Ryan Sean Adams called it "the end of an era" for Bankless, but he himself still disclosed holding ETH and continued to support the narrative of Ethereum as an institutional asset and the underlying asset of the on-chain economy.
4️⃣ Joseph Lubin @ethereum Joseph｜Ethereum Co-founder/SharpLink CEO｜XHunt Ranking: 56
Key takeaway: ETH is not just a crypto asset, but a crucial foundational asset for future institutional on-chain finance.
In late May, Joseph Lubin repeatedly forwarded and added to an article by SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom, clearly expressing his long-term judgment on Ethereum.
In his view, stablecoins, RWA, DeFi, smart contract vaults, and agentic AI financial systems are collectively driving the restructuring of global financial infrastructure. Ethereum is one of the most important underlying networks for these assets and applications.
On May 29, Lubin stated that Consensys' institutional team is bringing Ethereum to major global financial market infrastructure and large financial institutions, emphasizing that "TradFi keeps choosing Ethereum."
SharpLink's Q1 2026 financial report shows that as of May 4, 2026, SharpLink held 872,984 ETH.
5️⃣William Mougayar @wmougayar｜Author of The Business Blockchain｜XHunt Ranking: 3559
Key takeaway: ETH is severely undervalued.
Ethereum ranks first in all key metrics, including stablecoins, DeFi TVL, tokenized assets, settlement volume, and trading volume, with a market share of 21%-64%. However, its market capitalization accounts for only about 10% of the entire crypto market, which is completely unreasonable.
“Ethereum is infrastructure, just like the Internet. Value will naturally accumulate at the bottom layer, rather than just looking at the revenue or fees of the App layer.”
6️⃣ Hayden Adams @haydenzadams｜Founder of Uniswap｜XHunt Ranking: 25
Key takeaway: After David sold his ETH, he should actually acknowledge that the argument "ETH is money" is correct, but the way it holds true may be different from what many people imagine.
Hayden believes that in the future all assets will be tokenized, and people will hold the assets they value most, rather than using only one type of asset as the sole unit of accounting.
In this environment, what truly matters is not who becomes the sole currency, but who can provide a low-cost, efficient, 24/7 asset exchange system.
From this perspective, Uniswap on Ethereum is itself a decentralized currency system: it allows different assets to be exchanged at any time, enabling multiple forms of "currency" to compete in the same open market.
7️⃣Jediwolf@Jediwolf｜Member of The Doomed DAO｜XHunt Ranking: 1650
Key point: David Hoffman's statement that "Ethereum is a Giver, not a Taker" is accurate, but the conclusion may be exactly the opposite.
Jediwolf believes that the crypto market is too accustomed to understanding a blockchain in terms of "value extraction": high fees, high commissions, and value capture. But Ethereum's most unique feature is that it doesn't rush to take value from users, but instead provides tools, trust, and infrastructure to the ecosystem first.
Taking on-chain art as an example, Ethereum provides artists and collectors with almost a complete infrastructure: issuance, ownership verification, settlement, custody, identity, global liquidity, and composability. It may not directly cause ETH to appreciate immediately, but it will enable more and more artists to price with ETH, collectors to think with ETH, and cultural assets to form around ETH.
🌟Bearish
Besides price, personnel changes within the Ethereum community since 2026 have also become an important background for market discussions about ETH.
Since 2026, several senior researchers, protocol leaders, and management members have left the Ethereum Foundation. In May alone, several core members announced their departure.
Due to the highly concentrated timing, this wave of resignations has been dubbed the "Spring 2026 Reshuffle" by some community members and media outlets.
Against this backdrop, some investors have begun to re-evaluate ETH's long-term value capture capabilities, while others believe that this is simply a necessary adjustment before Ethereum moves into a new phase.
1️⃣David Hoffman @TrustlessState｜Co-founder of Bankless｜XHunt Ranking: 59
Key takeaway: The narrative that "ETH is Money" has largely closed. Ethereum remains successful as a network, providing secure block space and open infrastructure for L2, DeFi, stablecoins, RWA, and applications, but this success may not fully translate back into the ETH token itself. In other words, Ethereum may continue to grow, but ETH may not be the biggest beneficiary asset.
So David sold all his ETH and allocated the funds to other areas in the market where there were better opportunities.
2️⃣Markus Thielen@markus10x｜Founder of 10x Research｜XHunt Ranking: 60383
Key Takeaways: 10x Research published a high-conviction short ETH analysis on May 16, 2026. ETH's current weakness isn't just in price, but also in its fundamental narrative and institutional funding. The core logic can be summarized in three points:
ETH lacks cash flow in the traditional sense.
The derivatives market shows that short sellers are more proactive.
Institutional funds are also withdrawing.
Markus Thielen then stated that ETH has fallen by about 10% since the short-selling view was published, and that their bearish thesis was actually formed as early as October 31, 2025.
3️⃣Goldman Sachs - Shifting from spot exposure to defensive positioning
Key takeaway: Goldman Sachs has not publicly expressed a strong bearish view on ETH, but its 13F holdings changes in Q1 2026 show a significant reduction in its Ethereum spot ETF exposure.
The 13F filing shows that Goldman Sachs significantly reduced its holdings of some crypto ETFs in Q1, and was particularly cautious about allocating to ETH-related ETFs.
4️⃣Harvard Management Company (Harvard University Endowment Fund Management Company)
Key takeaway: Harvard has not publicly expressed a bearish view on ETH, but it has demonstrated its withdrawal through its actual positions.
Harvard Management Company established a new position in BlackRock's spot Ethereum ETF (ETHA) in Q4 2025, purchasing approximately 3.8709 million shares, with a holding value of approximately $86.82 million.
However, by Q1 of 2026, Harvard had completely liquidated this ETHA position. In other words, this Ethereum ETF exposure was held for only one quarter.
5️⃣eric@econoar｜EIP-1559 Author｜XHunt Rank: 156
Key takeaway: It's not surprising that David liquidated his ETH holdings, because ETH has indeed significantly underperformed the entire crypto market for several consecutive years.
Eric stated that he agrees with many of David's views and has significantly reduced his ETH holdings over the past 1-2 years. His current investments in other assets have clearly outperformed ETH.
However, he doesn't believe that ETH's underperformance is necessarily due to a fundamental flaw in Ethereum itself. Instead, he argues that an easily overlooked reason is that ETH's early price surge was too dramatic, creating a large number of early millionaires in a very short period, and the long-term selling pressure takes a considerable amount of time to be fully absorbed by the market.
Therefore, Eric's attitude is not to completely reject Ethereum, but to oppose ETH maximalism from the perspective of portfolio management.
The market doesn't lie; there's no need to fight it. If ETH heats up again, it's always a good time to buy back in.
6️⃣ Ignas @DefiIgnas｜Co-founder of @PinkBrains_io｜XHunt Ranking: 383
Key takeaway: ETH has shifted from consensus holding to contrarian betting.
Ignas believes that ETH's weakness over the past 2-3 years stems partly from changes in market style and partly from Ethereum's own problems: the L2 roadmap has led to weaker L1 value capture, slower L1 scaling, no significant improvement in user experience over a long period, and a weaker narrative regarding fees and revenue.
He acknowledged that Ethereum still possesses long-term moats such as decentralization, censorship resistance, and the cypherpunk concept, but the market is more concerned with revenue, trading volume, and valuation multiples in the short term.
This is also the current problem with ETH: Ethereum still dominates DeFi TVL, but much of the TVL revenue flows to protocols, stablecoin issuers, and L2, and does not necessarily flow back to ETH.
At the same time, the "ultrasound money" narrative has weakened. Lower fees benefit users, but if transaction volume doesn't increase accordingly, the logic of ETH burning and deflation will be difficult to re-establish.
Therefore, Ignas's view is that for ETH to regain market confidence, it cannot rely solely on long-term concepts; it also needs to bring back users, trading volume, fees, and value capture.
🌟Ending
The most interesting aspect of this controversy is that ETH is no longer just a symbol of faith within the crypto community.
In the past, the narrative surrounding ETH has revolved more around technological upgrades, ecosystem prosperity, and developer networks. As long as Ethereum is still in use, the market assumes that ETH will benefit as well.
But now, this default premise is being re-examined. The market will continue to ask: Where is the revenue? Where is the cash flow? Why are funds buying instead of BTC? Why are institutions holding long-term instead of short-term trading? How much of the ecosystem's growth will actually translate into ETH?
This is also the most awkward and crucial aspect of ETH's current situation. What ETH truly needs to prove going forward is not just that Ethereum will continue to exist, nor that its ecosystem will continue to thrive.
The question is whether ETH can truly transform from a "used underlying infrastructure" into a "core asset that is continuously bought and held" as more assets, more users, and more institutions enter the network.
This is the core issue behind this round of debate between bulls and bears.
