Bankless Co-Founder Exits Ethereum Position: The "ETH is Money" Thesis has Matured
David Hoffman, a prominent voice in the Ethereum community, has revealed he sold his ETH holdings, concluding that the asset’s primary valuation thesis has already played out.
A Strategic Shift in Perspective
In a move that surprised the crypto world, Bankless co-founder David Hoffman announced he has sold his Ethereum (ETH). Despite being one of the network's most vocal advocates, Hoffman stated that the "ETH is Money" thesis—a core belief that drove much of the asset's historical growth—has largely reached its conclusion. While he remains "massively bullish" on Ethereum as an infrastructure network, he no longer sees a clear path for ETH, the asset, to undergo another significant structural re-rating.
Success as Infrastructure, Struggle as an Asset
Hoffman’s decision hinges on the idea that Ethereum’s success as a platform does not automatically translate into exponential gains for the ETH token. He argues that the network's architectural evolution—specifically the shift toward Layer 2 (L2) rollups—effectively "leaks" value outward. In this new ecosystem, L2s and user-facing applications capture the majority of profit margins, while the Ethereum base layer provides secure settlement at a low cost. Furthermore, Hoffman noted that Ethereum has become the world's most successful settlement layer for stablecoins, but this utility benefits tokenized dollars more than ETH itself.
The Closing Monetary Window
According to Hoffman, the window for ETH to become the "monetary Schelling point" of the digital economy is narrowing. He observed that while Bitcoin stripped its base layer to prioritize its role as "hard money," Ethereum added programmability and sought to maximize utility. This approach created vast adoption but made ETH’s value dependent on winning across technology, governance, and market structure simultaneously. For Hoffman, the maturation of this complex coordination game means ETH has reached the price it deserves, leading him to reallocate his capital elsewhere.
