
A new search for the Artemis analysis company maintains that Ether undergoes the same reputation pivot that Bitcoin lived in the mid -2010s, but in fundamentally different terms. “ETH assessment only through the objective of cash flows or protocol costs is a category error”, writes the main author Kevin Li. “It is better understood as a rare but productive and programmable reserve asset whose value accumulates by its role in the security, adjustment and spread of an economy on the increasingly institutionalized chain.”
The Chemin d’Ethereum to reserve the asset status
Li begins by tackling the long -standing criticism that the flexible monetary policy of Ethereum disqualifies it as a value store. It models the worst case in which each existing ethn is marked out and the program strikes its theoretical ceiling. Even then, annual inflation amounts to approximately 1.52% in 2025 and is broken down to 0.89% per 2125, or below the average expansion of M2 of 6.36% of the US dollar since 1998 and even under the annual growth of the annual Gold de Gold offer. The document argues that the combination of the sub-linear emission and the EIP-1559 burn has already pushed net inflation-or periodically below-from zero, giving ETH a supply profile which “rivals gold while retaining the programmability of the software”.
The macro-conditions provide the backdrop of the thesis. Artemis notes that decades of monetary expansion have eroded confidence in Fiat and motivated investors to other value reserves. The American consumer price index has an average of 2.53% per year since 1998, but the money supply has increased more than twice as quickly, a difference that the report claims to “can explain a significant part of the nominal gains on the equity market”. The adaptive monetary policy of Ethereum, according to Li, offers a disciplined alternative without sacrificing the capacity of the network to pay from validators.
Institutional adoption is the second pillar of the argument. In the past 12 months, JPMorgan, Blackrock and Robinhood have each chosen Ethereum rails – either the basic layer, or an affiliated roll -up – for tokens deposits, monetary market funds and trading prototypes. The report cites the Buidl fund of BlackRock and the next JPMD Deposit token of JPMorgan as proof that the first -rate institutions no longer expressed on reference tests but construction products that will settle the value on a large scale. “As traditional finance migrates to the chain, the need to hold and set up ETH becomes structural rather than discretion,” writes Li.
This dynamic is visible in the data on the chain. Artemis calculates that the supply of token ecunines and assets on Ethereum reached a record of $ 123 billion in June, while the amount of ETH locked in validators has climbed to 35.5 million. The correlation in annual sliding between the value of chain assets and the marked ETH exceeds 88% in all the major categories that the company follows, strengthening the idea that the demand for security and settlement stimulates the demand for the native token.
The regulations, Long The Wild Card for any value -based value proposal, began to tilt in favor of Ethereum. On May 29, the Finance Finance Division of Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States published guidelines indicating that the markup at the level of the protocol, the delegated milestone and certain warning agreements did not constitute in themselves the proposals of securities. Although the decision has given way to the application specific to the facts, it paved the way for the declarants of Spot-ETF to include staging arrangements in their S-1 amendments. Since then, several potential transmitters have done exactly that, promising investors both to a passive exhibition at the ETH and a share of consensual awards.
Competition for Bitcoin?
The Artemis report also highlights a “wave of treasure all acts” which recalls the Bitcoin strategy of Microstrategy in 2020. Sharplink Gaming revealed at the end of May that it would begin to allocate species of companies with ether, a decision followed by a group of small American and Asian public enterprises. Together, they now hold more than 730,000 ETH, or around 2.6 billion dollars at current prices. The accumulation has coincided with an ETH outperformance period compared to the BTC – an unusual trend in the current cycle, which was otherwise dominated by bitcoin stories such as half supply shocks and potential American reserve operations.
Critics that argue that layer 2 networks cannibalize the base of Ethereum “Miss the Point” costs, says Li. By discharging execution while anchoring the regulations and availability of basic layers, roll-ups widen the total Ethereum market without eroding its security budget. Li compares the provision to the federal reserve system: “Regional banks manage daily traffic, but the ultimate regulation rests with the Central Bank.” In this analogy, the ETH is the reserve asset which guarantees the purpose.
The document concedes that other high-speed layers 1, in particular Solana, have siphoneed the “speed of the meme” and the volume of micro-transaction. Solana treated more transactions than Ethereum in five of the last six quarters. However, Li argues that the asset market requiring maximum security is “size orders” greater than the speculative trading debit market, in particular as a traditional funding token, deposits, deposits and money market funds.
Perhaps the most pointed section of the report re-examines Bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative. Just as the first criticisms rejected the BTC as volatile, illiquid and useless, ETH is today faced with doubts about its identity. “Bitcoin users had once justified why a purely digital asset could compete with gold,” writes Li. “Ethereum users must now justify why an asset limited by programmable yield can compete with Bitcoin. The burden of proof is reversed.”
After the long -awaited transition of Ethereum to the evidence of evidence and barely two months after the advice of featured the dry, the conversation around the ETH went from the “utility token” to something much closer to “the active reserve”. If Li’s thesis holds, future debates can run less on the fact that Ethereum can catch Bitcoin market capitalization and more what happens when institutions treat ether not as petrol for intelligent contracts, but as the basic money of the emerging chain economy.
At the time of the press, ETH exchanged $ 3,585.

Star image created with dall.e, tradingView.com graphic

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