Ethereum’s burn thesis is dead. The fee revenue story is weak. L2s are capturing most of the value, and $ETH no longer looks like the “ultrasound money” trade people sold in the last cycle. But that may be the wrong way to value it. ETH is becoming reserve collateral for the most neutral settlement network in crypto. Exchange supply is at multi-year lows, staking is at all-time highs, and institutions are building on Ethereum’s ecosystem through L2s, tokenized assets, stablecoins, and private settlement rails. The market is focused on what Ethereum earns today. The bigger question is what Ethereum becomes tomorrow: a programmable, neutral, private financial layer for institutions, AI agents, and global capital. Privacy and zk upgrades could be the real unlock here. If Ethereum can make private balances, private transfers, and scalable settlement native to the network, it becomes much more useful for serious financial institutions. Price is weak. Sentiment is terrible. But on-chain behavior says holders are locking in, not leaving. That is usually when the opportunity gets interesting.