Ether's unique position in a world of stablecoins
Thesis: Stablecoins will dominate pricing. ETH will dominate reserve. And the more stablecoins succeed, the stronger ETH’s position becomes.
1. Front-end chains give ETH cultural gravity. L2s settle to Ethereum. They adopt Ethereum’s norms. On Base, Arbitrum, OP, the money leg is ETH/WETH by default. That’s not a coincidence, it’s cultural momentum turning into liquidity.
2. Money premium beats fee math. Bitcoin’s value isn’t fees; it’s being held as money. In the EVM world, ETH is the non-custodial asset treasuries, LPs, bridges, MM desks, and validators actually post. Stablecoins handle checkout; ETH backs the system.
3. Network effects lock it in. Liquidity begets liquidity. As ETH’s market cap and depth outpace other smart-contract coins, every new integration lists ETH first, every new Ethereum-backed chain uses ETH gas/pairs by default, every new derivative launches on ETH first. The lead compounds.
4. ETH fits the rails; BTC doesn’t. EVM gas, WETH standards, paymasters, LST yield, restaking, L1 settlement economics — these rails were built around ETH. BTC’s brand is great; its fit here isn’t.
5. Stablecoin scale feeds ETH. Rollups post data to Ethereum and pay in ETH; base/blob fees burn; sequencers and validators get funded; MEV/tips accrue. The bigger the stablecoin economy on EVM, the stronger the ETH sink and the larger ETH’s monetary premium.
6. Neutrality matters. Stablecoins can freeze, stablecoin issuers can shut down. ETH can’t be issuer-frozen and it has no dependencies on any issuer. When censorship risk is non-zero, systems converge on the neutral reserve.
Call it what it is: Stablecoins are the UX; ETH is the reserve commodity of the modular internet. The endgame is not "ETH vs stablecoins". It’s stablecoins at the edge, ETH at the core, and the more edges we add, the more valuable the core becomes.
CC: @BlackRock @Fidelity @BitwiseInvest @21Shares @VanEck_US @InvescoUS @Grayscale @FTI_US @SharpLinkGaming @BitDigital_BTBT @BitMNR @GSQHoldings @NasdaqBTCS @TheEtherMachine
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