Bankless co-founder David Hoffman mentioned he offered his Ether holdings as a result of he believes the long-standing “ETH is cash” thesis has already largely performed out. Regardless of this, he stays strongly bullish on Ethereum as a community.
In keeping with Hoffman, the choice didn’t come frivolously, provided that he constructed his profession, enterprise, group, and identification round Ethereum.
Ethereum Selected the Exhausting Path Not like Bitcoin
In his newest tweet, Hoffman acknowledged that the “ETH is cash” thesis relied on Ethereum succeeding throughout a number of layers of coordination, together with decentralized management, governance, Layer 2 ecosystems, roadmap execution, and technological improvement.
Hoffman described Ethereum as “not Bitcoin,” and mentioned that Bitcoin simplified its blockchain to maximise the worth of BTC, whereas Ethereum pursued a extra bold path by increasing utility throughout decentralized functions, finance, tokenization, and infrastructure. He even went on so as to add that Ethereum achieved a part of that imaginative and prescient and earned the market capitalization it presently has, however mentioned the chance for ETH to be considerably rerated greater by the market now seems to be closing.
The Bankless co-founder additionally defined that the broader “sturdy model” of crypto, which centered on decentralized finance, NFTs, DAOs, and crypto-native techniques, failed to take care of long-term mainstream assist outdoors the 2020 to 2022 interval. He mentioned crypto’s status later grew to become related to scams, grifts, and speculative habits, which ended up weakening the social perception system required for ETH to operate as cash at a worldwide scale.
He additional acknowledged that Ether’s utility more and more advantages different types of cash, particularly stablecoins and tokenized {dollars}, quite than ETH itself. Hoffman described Ethereum as a “giver, not a taker,” whereas saying that the community offers safe blockspace, tokenization infrastructure, and DeFi assist at minimal price quite than extracting most worth for ETH holders. He mentioned Ethereum’s structure prioritizes functions, rollups, and ecosystem development over ETH itself, which makes it troublesome for the underlying crypto asset to completely obtain international cash standing with out overwhelming market dominance.
Ethereum in Disaster?
Hoffman’s determination additionally comes at a time when bearish sentiment round Ethereum has been intensifying. A current report by Santiment discovered that social media discussions have more and more shifted from optimism towards frustration and considerations about additional draw back.
The analytics agency mentioned merchants have more and more considered ETH as “lifeless cash” in comparison with stronger-performing crypto belongings in 2026, as weakening ETF flows, declining on-chain exercise, and rising competitors from ecosystems corresponding to Solana and BNB Chain added stress on sentiment.
Rumors about outstanding Ethereum figures decreasing or exiting ETH positions, together with discussions surrounding Hoffman, have additionally contributed to rising uncertainty out there, particularly as merchants nervous about insiders shedding confidence within the asset.
The submit “Ethereum Is a Giver, Not a Taker”: David Hoffman Explains ETH Exit appeared first on CryptoPotato.

