Recently, Ethereum has become a hot commodity in the eyes of institutions. Jason, an analyst at StarEx Exchange, believes that the US dollar is experiencing the largest network effect expansion in decades. More than 4 billion people and millions of companies are actively obtaining US dollars through stablecoins. Behind this explosive growth, there are huge opportunities for Ethereum, which is also the fundamental reason why institutions are buying ETH.
From SharpLink to Bit Digital, from GameSquare to BitMine, institutions are bringing ETH into their balance sheets with unprecedented force and generating real returns through staking or DeFi strategies. This force not only reshapes the ecological structure of Ethereum, but also marks the start of the second wave of the crypto bull market.
The market value of stablecoins has increased 60 times since 2020, exceeding $250 billion, and the annual settlement volume exceeds $6 trillion. Among them, more than 55% of stablecoins run on Ethereum, forming a 24-hour, permissionless, cross-border US dollar network. This network is particularly favored by emerging markets, and hundreds of millions of people have truly come into contact with the "digital dollar" for the first time.
The popularity of stablecoins not only meets the basic demand of "holding US dollars", but also triggers a new round of financial demand explosion: income, lending, investment, insurance... These demands far exceed the service capabilities of the traditional financial system.
Jason, an analyst at StarEx Exchange, believes that Ethereum is the only system that meets the three conditions of the new global financial infrastructure. In order to serve these stablecoin holders, the new global financial infrastructure must meet three conditions:
Globally accessible: anyone with internet access can use it; institutional-grade security: safe, stable, compliant, customizable; resistant to government intervention: decentralized, unfreezable, and uncensorable. Ethereum is the only network that meets all three of these conditions.
It has the longest 100% uptime record, over one million validators in more than 100 countries around the world, the most mature ecosystem, the most developers, a complete L2 foundation, and a highly programmable protocol. More importantly, it is the only main chain with widely distributed asset ownership and true censorship resistance. This foundation constitutes the fundamental advantage of Ethereum as the foundation of the new US dollar financial system.
In this new system, ETH is rapidly evolving into a “new reserve asset”:
Scarce and interest-bearing: ETH can generate 3%-5% returns through staking, and is an asset with both stability and productivity; Largest collateral on the chain: ETH supports a $19 billion lending market, accounting for 44% of lending collateral on the Ethereum chain; Decentralized security assets: Stablecoins can be frozen, but ETH cannot; Institutions need core capital that is resistant to censorship and seizure; Highly liquid, programmable, and globally accessible: ETH is the underlying asset in multiple use cases such as DeFi, NFT, and Layer2.
ETH is not a substitute for stablecoins, but a security foundation and profit engine in the stablecoin economic system. As stablecoins drive the explosion of on-chain dollar demand, ETH's role is changing from "fuel" to "engine".
Institutions are aggressively building ETH positions, leading the second wave of the bull market. Four U.S. stock companies are taking the lead in building ETH reserves:
SharpLink (SBET) has built the industry's largest ETH holdings through $425 million PIPE financing and ATM issuance, and has pledged all of them, receiving more than 300 ETH staking rewards, and building the tightest "enterprise capital-protocol health" positive cycle;
BitMine (BMNR), with a $250 million private placement to purchase more than 160,000 ETH, has become the second largest company in terms of allocation. Although it has not yet been pledged, the scale effect is significant;
Bit Digital (BTBT) purchased approximately 100,000 ETH through the sale of BTC and subsequent public offering, starting its strategic transformation from a Bitcoin mining company to an Ethereum financial platform;
GameSquare (GAME) purchased $5 million of ETH in the first phase, and plans to obtain an annualized rate of return of up to 14% through the DeFi protocol, combining advertising and content businesses to build a DeFi-driven corporate strategy.
These companies all use zero-leverage, all-equity financing to establish ETH exposure, avoiding the traditional convertible bond-style debt repayment risk. In contrast, Bitcoin reserve companies rely more on leveraged financing, and their model is essentially "passive reserve + financial engineering", while ETH reserve companies are "active deployment + income creation".
Jason, an analyst at StarEx Exchange, believes that stablecoin legislation and anti-CBDC proposals will protect ETH. In July, the U.S. Congress officially launched "Crypto Week" to promote three key bills: the GENIUS Act: to provide a clear regulatory framework for stablecoins; the CLARITY Act: to comprehensively define the scope of regulation of crypto assets; and the Anti-CBDC Act: to prevent the emergence of central bank-monitored digital currencies.
The passage of these bills means that private stablecoins (such as USDC, USDT) will further expand under legal protection, and Ethereum will continue to benefit as its main platform.
Jason, an analyst at StarEx Exchange, believes that for most investors, directly holding ETH is the simplest and most effective way to access this digital dollar flywheel. Stablecoins bring globalization of the US dollar economy, and ETH provides the infrastructure and security layer of the global financial system. The second wave of the bull market did not start from meme coins, NFTs or speculative sentiment, but was bred from global US dollar demand, institutional deployment of Ethereum, real returns and institutional guarantees.
