The cryptocurrency market is forming an increasingly clear consensus that the fate of Ethereum's development is gradually approaching that of Chinese concept stocks.

The core characteristics of the so-called Chinese concept stock dilemma are very distinct: overseas capital incubation, overseas market pricing, local carrying traffic and landing, narrative oscillation in the later stage, stagnant valuation, continuous exit of core institutions, and a lack of continuity between old and new stories. Now, this cycle of destiny is fully replicated on Ethereum.

In 2023, Wanxiang, an early core investor in Ethereum, will continue to reduce its holdings of ETH at an average price of $2047; In May 2026, Hoffman, the founder of Bankless, once the strongest external propaganda stronghold of Ethereum, also cleared his position and left near the $2000 price range.

Bankless was once the creator of the top narrative "ETH is Money" and the core driving force of the Ethereum faith in the 2021 bull market, and was once regarded as the "official external propaganda department" of Ethereum. When the most steadfast preacher chose to leave, coupled with the intensive departure of eight core members of the Ethereum Foundation, the cornerstone of the market's faith began to completely loosen.

Faced with a public opinion crisis, Vitalik took the initiative to "deify" the Ethereum Foundation. He stated that EF only holds 0.16% of the ETH supply on the entire network and should not surpass any node in the ecosystem. He will also gradually withdraw from daily operations and return Ethereum to the ecosystem and the market.

But the market did not buy it. At present, Ethereum's underlying infrastructure, ecological completeness, and industry dominance are all at their historical peak, but community dissatisfaction continues to spread. The core of the contradiction is no longer simply a low coin price, but a key question: why did market confidence fall to the bottom when the fundamentals were strongest?

1、 Layered Public Chain Track: Ethereum loses emotional resilience

In the current cryptocurrency market, every type of core asset has a clear pricing logic and emotional support, but Ethereum is in an awkward stalemate.

BTC's decline is a deterministic opportunity to buy at the bottom and the ultimate chassis of the industry; SOL has fallen, and the market will review its journey of rebirth. We believe in its ecological resilience and rebound ability; Narrative currencies like HYPE have mature trading logic and funding strategies.

On the other hand, Ethereum has no consensus on its decline, no explosive power in its rise, and no expectations for its long-term sideways trend. Some people attribute the problem to Vitalik's idealized style and inefficient foundation governance, but across the industry, the "abstraction" and "controversy" of public chain founder teams are common phenomena.

Solana founder actively embraces the popular DEX track and cultivates the community; Multiple founders of XRP have conducted bulk clearance and reduction of holdings; A large number of L2 project founders pursue extreme self-interest and short-term token monetization. In contrast, Vitalik's restraint and EF's conservatism are not the core causes of Ethereum's predicament.

The problem with Ethereum has never been the team's wrongdoing, but rather the innate abnormality of its ecological structure and governance model, which is highly consistent with the underlying fate of Chinese concept stocks.

2、 Destiny Remake: Ethereum's Medium Concept Stock style Bottom Architecture

In the past two decades, the classic model of Chinese concept stocks has been: offshore structure construction, incubation of US dollar funds, pricing of US stock listings, and local market and landing functions. The growth of enterprises relies on local traffic, and their valuation relies on overseas capital. In the end, their entry and exit, rise and fall, and exit are all controlled by others, and they have no say in it.

The birth and development of Ethereum completely replicated this model.

From 2014 to 2015, Ethereum relied heavily on domestic resources during its initial stage, while Vitalik relied on the Shen Bo team to land and develop, obtaining a key start-up capital of $500000 from Wanxiang led by Xiao Feng. Unlike BTC's pure decentralized mining and distribution model, Ethereum has been accommodating three core groups of capital, miners, and staking institutions through a three-layer mechanism of ICO fundraising, PoW mining, and PoS staking since its inception, with inherent institutional and capitalization attributes.

This also destined that the Ethereum ecosystem will never have an absolutely equal node pattern, and will always be in a state of feudal separatism and multi-party game. For such highly complex ecosystems, foundations and founders should have taken on core governance responsibilities, using authoritative power to constrain the disorderly entropy increase of the ecosystem, anchor development directions, and stabilize market expectations.

But the Ethereum core team chose a completely opposite path. From "Infinite Garden" to "Ladder Theory", EF's governance philosophy has become increasingly abstract and hollow, detached from the actual needs of the market. In the governance controversy of rsETH, the foundation's silence and absence have made Aave founder Stani the core force in maintaining ecological order; When the Solana Foundation actively linked up with the entire industry ecosystem and worked together to warm up, the Ethereum Foundation still adhered to a Buddhist attitude, selling coins on a regular basis and maintaining collective silence.

The essence of governance is never to intervene in everything, nor to completely lie flat. Excessive restraint and deliberate weakening of one's own influence are essentially another form of governance dereliction of duty. Vitalik's attempt to achieve decentralization by streamlining the foundation and phasing out operations is actually giving up core responsibilities. What Ethereum needs most is not the freedom to govern by inaction, but a pragmatic and strong coordinating force to anchor the direction of the ecosystem and stabilize asset expectations.

3、 PoS narrative breakthrough: unmanned valuation deadlock

With the landing of ETH staking ETFs and various institutions building their own staking nodes, Ethereum has officially entered the narrative era of "productive assets". BitMine and other DAT institutions are accelerating their layout of the staking track, while top players such as Lido and Spark are fully rendering the value logic of "ETH earning".

But a beautiful narrative ultimately cannot withstand the cold market reality. The ETH price has been anchored at $2000 for a long time, and the marginal effect of Lido's continuous expansion continues to decrease. The APR of the entire network is constantly under pressure, and the once popular narrative of "productive ETH" has completely faded.

Ethereum has fallen into an extremely awkward vacuum of power and responsibility: foundations are not responsible for coin prices, staking institutions are unable to provide a bottom line, and the ecosystem has no one to coordinate expectations. The entire PoS system may seem vast and complete, but in reality, it is in a stagnant state of ownerless, disordered, and without increment.

This scene still highly overlaps with the transformation dilemma of Chinese concept stocks. After changes in the external environment, the original growth logic of Chinese concept stocks has become ineffective, and can only passively pursue new hotspots such as AI and high-end manufacturing. The narrative swings repeatedly, but it has never been able to reshape the valuation system. Today's Ethereum is also trapped in a vacuum period where the old narrative has failed and the new narrative has not yet been established.

4、 Technological Narrative Swinging: From Leading the Era to Passive Adaptation

The current core technology direction of Ethereum is clear and diverse: ZK privacy technology is widely popularized, on chain AI and end-to-end agents are implemented, and the development focus is shifting from L2 expansion to L1 underlying infrastructure, supported by mature tracks such as stablecoins and RWA.

But all layouts have a fatal problem: subject object inversion.

The former Ethereum, with a grand vision of a "world computer," led the development of the blockchain industry as a disruptor. Nowadays, Ethereum no longer defines the future of the industry, but passively integrates into the existing market and adapts to hot trends. The ambition that everything can be put on the chain has faded away, leaving only the entanglement and internal friction of constantly adapting and following.

Vitalik has always adhered to its core belief that ETH is a digital commodity that carries functions, rather than a "money" sought after by the market. This understanding is clear enough, but it also completely shatters the market's currency narrative beliefs. In February 2026, Vitalik reduced his holdings of 8800 ETH in batches through CowSwap, operating with restraint and compliance, without malicious cashing out or harvesting individual investors. However, this further exacerbated the market's indifferent expectations - the core team has been reducing their holdings for a long time, so how can the market gain confidence?

Even more deadly, in the era of AI sweeping the globe, Ethereum has completely lost its leading position in the industry. At present, high-quality encryption projects are rapidly transforming into the AI field. Hermes Agent has entered the mainstream AI circle, xUbble integrates AI and on chain intentions, and OpenSea founder is deeply involved in AI infrastructure. Various projects are skillfully adapted to industry trends and seize market hotspots.

On the other hand, in Ethereum, even if the dAI team jointly launches the ERC-8183 standard and builds an on chain AI agent framework, it is only a passive adaptation to industry changes, and no longer has the dominant power of defining the track and creating trends as before.

The ultimate questioning of the industry follows: What is the core value of public chains in the era of AI?

If AI giants like Claude were to develop their own public blockchain, what would be the differentiation advantage of Ethereum? Perhaps there is only one answer left: Ethereum is the only open financial testing ground in the world that is borderless, unregulated, and free to experiment and make mistakes. Traditional AI giants, constrained by legal regulations in various countries, will never be able to replicate this core advantage.

5、 Conclusion: The golden age comes to an end, the fragmented era welcomes new opportunities

The golden age of Ethereum has come to a complete end.

The reduction of holdings by early institutions and foundations will not stop, the super market with a hundred fold increase no longer exists, and the fervent belief in "ETH is Money" has completely cooled down. But this does not mean that Ethereum is declining. The $2000 ETH is still ten times lower than its historical low. It has just bid farewell to its wild growth adolescence and entered a new stage of pattern reshaping.

The fate of Ethereum and Chinese concept stocks coincides, which is essentially the inevitable result of the era of globalization and fragmentation: relying on foreign capital to start, relying on external market pricing, and ultimately falling into transformation confusion in the changing landscape.

But crisis always coexists with opportunity. In the current era of global geopolitical fragmentation and intensified financial barriers, the market urgently needs a borderless, neutral, and open global connectivity infrastructure. Canton belongs to Wall Street and serves the traditional financial system, while Ethereum belongs to all humanity and carries the ultimate demand for free finance and decentralized innovation.

Pessimists indulge in the end of faith and stagnant market conditions, while optimists see a new increment that divides the era. Although Ethereum has lost its narrative of sudden wealth, it still maintains the core underlying value of Web3. It is no longer a fanatical wealth target, but still the most stable decentralized link pivot in this fragmented world.