Hello, venture capitalist, it's been a while . Um, how are you? There was a moment. I'm doing great. It seems like we are in a bear market for tokens, but it seems like we are currently in the biggest bull market for blockchain since I started doing Ethereum.
So I'm very excited, very inspired. Perfectly. Um, actually, you know, it's interesting, when you launched Etherealize back in 2025, I remember talking to you and some of the team members, and I think part of the motivation for you to launch was that you felt like there wasn't a felt like there wasn't a very clear message about Ethereum on Wall Street. Um, I'm interested to hear your version of events, and whether you think that's still the case, and how it may have changed since your launch. I actually think the value proposition of public blockchains in general, and Ethereum in particular, is the strongest it has ever been .
The acceptance is the strongest it has ever been . The regulatory framework, everything we need for success and renewal of the entire financial system, is already here. Uh, all of this is just in the engine room and hasn't come out yet . And I think that now that opportunity lies in the acceptance, the willingness to embrace new technology, it has finally appeared. Hmm, a year ago when we launched, it was in proof-of- concept mode, and we said there was a lack of a voice that would say, "Here are the institutional use cases for this global platform global platform , similar to the Internet, where you can move money, assets, and the entire financial system."
And now it's kind of a foregone conclusion that we're going to integrate blockchains into many, many financial systems. So, um, no, I think the narrative is as strong as ever, but in banks, in asset managers, it's not mainstream yet. And again, I think it's a possibility. So what do they say about Ethereum? What conversations are you having with the big banks about the need to revamp the financial system?
There's a lot of legacy architecture, and by legacy architecture I mean a lot of it is built on Cobalt, a lot of it runs on Excel spreadsheets, a lot of it runs on, uh, faxes, wires, and technologies that simply shouldn't be the foundation of the global financial system, especially its center, which is the United States. It's a little ironic that, ahem a little ironic that, ahem , the technological level for the most powerful capital markets in the world is outdated, but it takes a significant amount of inertia on the part of regulators, on the part of institutions, to actually need this upgrade. And banks have long known that blockchains are an upgrade. Blockchains are not that complicated. They're not that complicated a concept, except that, um, they've all embraced the internet.
Everyone uses the Internet now. And now, if you have an internet if you have an internet layer with money on it, it updates the entire financial system. So they experiment for a very long time. But now that regulation is very favorable, the use of public blockchains has finally become obvious to everyone. So they're all moving assets, and it's pretty exciting.
So you think that regulation itself has given some institutions the confidence to take this step . So I think it had to do with a few things. a few things. First, the technology had to be ready, and by ready, that means you need to see a track record. No institution is going to use a blockchain launched a year ago, two years ago, or three years ago with real financial assets financial assets .
Ethereum has a 10-year history of operating without downtime. The most secure network The most secure network . The only other one is Bitcoin, but you can't have assets in Bitcoin. So he has a track record. This is the first.
And the technology is already... the technology is already... secondly, we needed to see that institutions started to conduct enough pilots and proofs of concepts so that, um, there was a precedent. And that's why Black Rockck did it with Bidd. Um, there are a lot of stablecoins now.
60% of stablecoins now. 60% of all stablecoins are on Ethereum. So, on the institutional side, there is product-market fit. And finally, but most importantly, we now have a regulatory environment that supports public blockchain, saying that the US should be the center of blockchain adoption. So the passage of the Genius Act became for me the starting point for the passage of the Stablecoin Act.
Now everyone is allowed to use stablecoins. So now it's completely canceled. The next step will be clarity. But even so, blockchains are now enshrined in law, and they are ready for implementation. Perfectly.
And, as I understand it, you realize that you are bringing institutions into Wall Street. So can you tell me a little bit about what your company does and what your plans are for the future? Yes, of course. So there is always a dual mandate. I mean, we love the Ethereum ecosystem because to me it represents the most Internet-like network where you can actually coordinate the entire global financial system.
I mean, ultimately, outside of the US, we're focused on the US to start with, but where is the one place where you can get JP Morgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Black Rock to agree that there's one platform? This will not be a platform that belongs to someone else. It should be something neutral. Just as everyone puts all their information online and their data online, they put their assets in a neutral location. This has always been considered the greatest value of Ethereum to me.
So, um value of Ethereum to me. So, um , part of our job is to job is to emphasize why this is valuable. Decentralization actually means, ahem actually means, ahem , no central party controlling the network. Hmm, lowest counterparty risk, highest asset protection. So we are teaching on the Ethereum front.
This is important. If we don't spread the values and narratives of Ethereum and credit-neutral blockchains, we will miss the point. And if a significant portion of the financial system moves to a consortium chain or a centralized chain, and they inevitably break or fail, then we will lose the window of opportunity that we have now. Therefore, part of our mandate is training. During the first six months that we were teaching, a lot of players said, " players said, " Great, we don't want to create any of this ourselves."
So, um, can you give us the building blocks we need to actually move our assets to the chain in a sustainable way? So the "sustainable way" is something else, we don't... something else, we don't... blockchains have passed the proof-of- concept stage. It's about what we need for real-scale institutional implementation?
And no one was creating it, so we did it. So this involves, uh, very specialized tokenization that goes into the back goes into the back offices of organizations, accounting teams, and like all the people who use faxes use faxes , phone calls, etc. This is what we want to improve with tokenization. The second is confidentiality. I strongly believe that privacy should be a layer on top of public blockchains public blockchains , not built into the blockchain itself.
Optionality and modularity are needed. Ethereum was created for exactly this. Therefore, we have created a fairly robust privacy infrastructure. And the last thing is applications. Tokenization without use cases and applications does nothing .
So again, we said we need to step in and help scale institutional assets. And so half of our work is to create what is missing in the gaps of the ecosystem. Half the work is talking about why it all belongs to Ethereum, right? Hmm, I'm always curious how the word " the word " decentralization," or even the concept itself, resonates with Wall Street, because, um, you know, and that's also part of Vitalik's mandate, where he wants the CROPS framework to essentially be, you know, a more agile team in EF, censorship resistance, openness, privacy, and security. And, you know, does Wall Street really understand that, or do you feel like it's kind of a big learning curve to get that vision?
Yes and no. The most ironic thing, as our co-founder Danny said, is that Danny helped create a lot of Ethereum and led the merge when Ethereum moved to Proof-of-Stake, and EF values decentralization above all other mandates and values. But he ironically said that the biggest customers of decentralization are actually institutions, and that's thanks to incentive mechanisms. Because if you move to a blockchain ecosystem controlled by a party or company, there are single points of failure and lower profitability. So it's quite ironic that, um, the way to learn decentralization is this: you want to move to the most secure blockchain ecosystem blockchain ecosystem .
So decentralization to me means security; means stability; this means no single points of failure. That's what resonates, but it's also kind of a gamble. I mean, we have to be better than the existing system. So the question you always get is, "Why not just use AWS?" Because blockchain will always be less productive than AWS, by definition.
So what's better than Amazon counterparty risk? It's a system that no one owns, and that's what they understand. I mean, I'm really glad EF is narrowing its focus to crops. I think this is the only way. I think they're the ones moving in zigzags while all their blockchain ecosystems are moving in zigzags, and so, um, it'll work.
But, but, we need to make sure that Ethereum remains the most decentralized, neutral, securely open platform open platform that anyone can access. This is how we achieve the scale of the Internet. So, um, I know that RWA, I think Ethereum is still number one in terms of RWA, uh one in terms of RWA, uh , value. Yes. Uh, but Salana now, um, has over two billion RWA, um, growth, and, um, you know, I know a lot of traders, payment firms Visa, Stripe, PayPal, who are also now using now using , um, Salana for stablecoin payments .
Um, Ethereum...Etherealiz has always held the belief that Ethereum the belief that Ethereum is the blockchain for Wall is the blockchain for Wall Street. Um, just wondering what conversations you're having with institutions regarding Ethereum vs. Salana. Um, to be honest, Salana is never mentioned.
So, this is what should have been, um, last cycle, it was fleeting, it was, I mean, it was one of the conversations in the room. Now the real question that arises for you is whether to use something like Ethereum, a public open blockchain open blockchain . Hmm, I think that's pretty...pretty: liquidity, locking in total value, stablecoins, RWA, institutional adoption speak for themselves speak for themselves . And, um, other blockchains .
And, um, other blockchains , I don't know, have decided to specialize in other, less institutional assets and applications, and you see how that's happening. But the real conversation now is whether we should use open, permissionless blockchains or consortium-permissioned blockchains. This is a much more interesting conversation because yes, we need to be better than what consortia can do. We need to be better at what existing infrastructure can do . And so the transition from something that's owned by a group of banks or a group of asset managers to actually being like the Internet, that's what's more interesting to convince people of.
And, um, yes, that's where all our energy is focused, given the different L1 blockchain ecosystems. Is there a way to take a hybrid approach? Would you support this, or do you simply believe that unauthorized access is the right way to go? No, this is the most beautiful thing about Ethereum. We have all these tools in our toolbox because of what EF did, because of what the Ethereum developers did.
We have the most modular ecosystem. So you can have consortium chains on top of public permissionless blockchains that are secure. You can have secure, you can have privacy chains. You can have different applications on top of public permissionless layers permissionless layers . This is provided that the base level is secure and open.
Again , I always go back to the Internet because it's the best analogy. As long as you have HTTP at a basic level, you can create your own secure your own secure websites. You can create your own HTTPS on top of it. You can have your own consortium chains on top of it. This is why the second-tier model is not dead at all.
I think what , um, what Vitalik said is what, um , what EF said is that the second level should be differentiated. They must be specialized. They have to stand out. They must have use cases. And so we see that, I mean, you see that the lighter Ethereum-based one will ultimately have much greater functional throughput, um, security, than even something like Hyperlid, because it's an application chain on top of a large open chain.
You will have privacy protocols, um, that are controlled by institutions, but on top of Ethereum. So yeah, I think that's the only place where you can have your cake and it's a pretty positive amount, and so yeah, I think you can do all of that with Ethereum, right? And you see, um , more institutions potentially preferring to go the second- tier route, rather than just launching their own chains, or right now, I mean, judging from the data, it's been a little bit difficult. For example, you saw the launch of Tempo, you saw the launch of Arc from Circle. Um, you also saw, I mean, the most successful use cases were things like Coinbase based on Ethereum and Robin Hood tier two, and both of those are still going to grow tremendously.
And then things like Lighter, the application chain thesis, I actually think the first and second tier frameworks will be abstracted away because of what EF is narrowing its focus to, which is saying, " which is saying, " Let's make sure Ethereum is future-proof." Let's make sure it's quantum-stable, and let's also make sure that the base layer has ZK built in so that layers 1 and 2 can feel like the same thing, so that you can have super-fast layers 2 for connectivity and compatibility with layers 1. So I mean, I think the L1 L2 thing will be abstracted for institutions. They'll just use Ethereum, and if they want, um, more, a consortium blockchain that's faster, cheaper, or has its own opinion, that's ultimately going to be layer two, and if they want to just be at the base level and interact with all their liquidity in one jump, that's going to be layer one. Good.
Hmm, I want to change the subject a bit. I want to talk a little bit about price predictions because you published a report a few months ago called ago called Productive Money and it got a lot of buzz. I've seen it on Twitter and other places. Hmm, in this report you set a target price of 250,000 for ETH. Hmm, that's quite...
for ETH. Hmm, that's quite... I made it quite a big... it quite a big... quite a big jump from where we are now.
Hmm, tell me a little bit about the report and how you came up with that number. Yes. So, this is the TAM of what ETH can become when you convert it into money. And this is a very important construct because people misvalue blockchain assets. And they have continued to do so since the report was published.
So the report was published. So , so far, we're closer to the downside than 23,000. I... downside than 23,000. I...
we support this because we believe that blockchain is a new technology with exponential growth, and people have stopped thinking about exponents when they think about blockchain. They think, hmm, they look at blockchain ecosystems for the revenue they generate or the fees they generate. And blockchains are not companies. If, if they are a true blockchain infrastructure, you are like the internet. But what is the difference between the internet and blockchain?
Blockchain protects value. It protects assets. So you need a core asset at the core of every blockchain for security and to be censorship resistant, that ideal asset between all the different tokenized assets that are on blockchains. So, to say that Bitcoin has a Bitcoin network, Bitcoin is an asset and people know that it has value to protect the network. Miners mine Bitcoin and then sell it for their own money, and that's how you pay for the network.
The potential of the Ethereum network is much higher than that of Bitcoin. The entire financial system will be on it. There will be a sea of, I think, trillions of tokenized assets on it. The primary asset that protects and powers Ethereum is ETH. So the best money in the entire Ethereum ecosystem is ETH.
So I don't know when that will happen. It is clear that this did not happen after the report was published. But ETH is better money than Bitcoin. And ETH is very similar, that is, it is very similar to gold in a sense, and it has a yield, and it has additional properties. So we think the biggest opportunity biggest opportunity , which will be exponential, exponential, is when one day people start converting ETH from being valued by cash flow to being part of a portfolio.
This is a monetary asset that we need to hold alongside something like gold. And when some of the flows start to move out of Bitcoin, which is fairly centrally controlled by a few players who can sell it, and start to move into ETH, then the repricing could become the overall average average target amount for Bitcoin and the overall average target amount for gold. And this is how we will achieve our ultimate goal. Good. It'll take time, but yeah, it's a pretty interesting call option right now, I think.
Uh, without naming names, do you think that commitment to the future of Ethereum means holding onto the asset itself? I mean, the really beautiful part is that you don't have to do it. I mean, the do it. I mean, the monetary value of ETH should speak for itself. I personally view this again as an in-the- money call option, not an out-of-the-money call not an out-of-the-money call option, obviously I think the network will grow.
Of course, I like the returns from staking. Of course, I like the asset's resistance to censorship. But, if and when money revalues, it has 100x. So this is something worth holding onto forever. But not all players should do this.
So, here's the thing. I mean, if banks and asset managers want to use Ethereum to use Ethereum , we don't tell them once that you have to hold ETH as an asset. I think ETH should be a byproduct of people saying it's a winning network. This is where all the assets are located. I want to own a piece of the internet.
I can actually do this by holding the underlying asset and earning some income on it, and it's a good means of preserving value. This will take time. But no, we know there's something for everyone here. The only way to participate in the Bitcoin network participate in the Bitcoin network is to own BTC. We don't want ETH to be defined this way either.
You can create smart contracts. You can only hold USDC. You can trade. You can modernize operations. You can run RWS, but you can also hold this great asset as a call option that can re- emerge to the level of Bitcoin and gold.
Steeply. Um, I guess I have a question, one last question. We have a little less than a minute here. Um, Clarity Act, any predictions? Do you think we will get the green light?
It was quite amazing that a year ago, almost a year ago, we had the opportunity to testify before Congress regarding the Clarity Act. And this was one of the first times Ethereum found itself in the political spotlight. And now, a year later, we are hopefully close to the finish line. And, um, I think we'll achieve our goal. I think we will achieve our goal.
I think the important thing is that it doesn't matter much to the Ethereum ecosystem because we have geniuses. We already have a law. You already have most stablecoins running on Ethereum, and blockchains are a bipartisan technology infrastructure that will transcend this political regime. It would be good if the Clarity Act were passed because it would simply provide a lot more regulatory clarity regulatory clarity . You're going to see a lot more adoption, but, and I think it will be adopted, and I think there's a lot of political momentum political momentum , but I think Ethereum surpasses all of that.
Perfectly. Thank you all.
Automatic transcript — names and jargon may be misspelled.