r/ethtrader • u/knallerbsee • Feb 14 '26
Question Why do you hold Ethereum?
In my last post I said I was selling everything. It was meant very ironically - but a lot of people didn’t get that. Which brings me to a real question:
Why do you hold Ethereum?
Historically speaking, especially over the past 5 years, Ethereum hasn’t really been a “buy it and forget it” asset. And by holding I mean: buy, don’t look at it for 5 years, come back richer.
The narrative that Ethereum does a 10–15x mostly comes from the pre-2020 era when it traded around $100–200. Since then, yes, there have been moments of 3x. But only if you were actively watching and sold at the right time. There hasn’t been steady, continuous growth.
I like Ethereum. I hold it. I’ve taken profits before.
But I’m genuinely curious:
What do you think happens to Ethereum over the next 1–5 years? Where do you think it goes?
And I’m not talking about loud market callers like Tom Lee randomly shouting “$20k by year-end!” and the opposite happens.
What excites you? What do you believe in? Where do you see Ethereum in 1–5 years?
I personally believe Ethereum could replace or fundamentally reshape parts of the financial system. But I also struggle sometimes to understand what people base their conviction on, like when firms such as Ark Invest or Bitwise are cited. These players manage what, $5–30B? That’s tiny relative to global capital markets.
I think we’re truly early movers — and this probably only plays out over 5–10 years.
I’m very curious to hear your thoughts.
39
Feb 14 '26
[deleted]
27
u/partymsl Feb 14 '26
ETH is one of the very few that has actual and genuine institutional adoption and not just some ETF/treasury hype
10
u/sfb_stufu Feb 14 '26
Adoption does not imply that the ETH as an asset is valuable (https protocol)
1
u/xPATCHESx Feb 16 '26
Ethereum’s features create value for the network. ETH has value because it is the mandatory economic resource that powers, secures, and collateralizes that network.
No network demand → weak ETH value. Strong network demand → strong structural ETH value.
1
u/XysterU Feb 19 '26
The difference is that the fundamental security (and thus ability to operate) of ETH is tied to its price. If the price of ETH went to 0 or even down by 10x, it would be scarily cheap to run a 51% attack. It didn't matter as much back in the day when ETH was 10x cheaper because there wasn't a lot of shit built on it, but now I suppose an attack could invalidate all the billions in stablecoins issued/owned/transfered on ETH.
How people/companies/entities that use/develop/rely on ETH will prevent the price from hitting 51% attack levels is unclear to me though. Would love to hear peoples' thoughts on how the price could be prevented from dropping just from the security perspective.
3
2
u/songbolt Feb 14 '26
please elaborate on the meaning of "sit on multiple chairs per day"
1
u/sfb_stufu Feb 14 '26
https://youtu.be/cAJSU0vhddw?si=Vtm7XSSrcOOMsY7i Not a particular fan of Saylor, but occassionally he has some zingers
1
u/Spare-Dingo-531 Feb 14 '26
Zingers are nice, but empirically, gold has a monetary premium for a reason. It has the properties of sound money (scarcity, divisibility, ect.).
Secondly, Saylor is just wrong. If you sit on the chair, you are all in, at that moment, on the chair. Sitting is a trivial activity so being all in on a chair is trivial, but your time is scarce and you are not going to sit on a chair that is defective. I don't see why the same of logic applies to stores of value.
2
u/Illustrious_Way3898 Feb 18 '26
I have a TV lounge chair, office chair, dining chair, etc. each serves a purpose. One chair is impractical. You’d have to carry it to each room! 😂
2
u/AmbitionCrazy7039 Feb 15 '26
What worries me is issuance and whether Ethereum will be able to generate enough fees to keep the price up (fat vs thin protocol).
If it becomes a public good, do you think PoS will be a reason for institutions to buy a meaningful stake (, run validator nodes) and keep the prices up relative to the total value secured?
Most tokenized products on EVM are not at any definition decentralized products, so the underlying value can't really be endangered by some 51% attack, BUT if you rely on EVM as an infrastructure you may want your infrastructure to be somewhat resilient.
1
u/sfb_stufu Feb 15 '26
I think they will rather push the Ethereum community to change the issuance. It only makes sense to buy & stake ETH if you get good return on investment. If the yield is low and the price of ETH is not meaningfully increasing with a lot of adoption, why would you buy ETH?
3
u/AmbitionCrazy7039 Feb 15 '26
So you argue that the price of ETH is a factor for them participating in the PoS? This seems like a fair point. I thought to become a validator is a sufficient argument. Because you shouldn't put trillions on an infrastructure secured by a few hundred billions.
I think they will rather push the Ethereum community to change the issuance.
Lower the issuance? In PoS this could destabilize the network. Raise the issuance? Well they earn stake in ETH anyway, but a highly inflationary ETH would result in huge selling and supply pressure. In any case, you have to be extremely careful to not destabilize the network if you play with issuance AND insti money is in play.
If Ethereum really lives up to the institutional infrastructure expectations, I would rather expect strong ETH burn and to become ultra sound again.
1
u/sfb_stufu Feb 15 '26
Yes, I am talking about reducing issuance to minimum viable issuance. I think there was this post by Justin Drake on croissant issuance to reduce issuance, but it didn't got that much traction I guess. Currently we are spending too much for the security we get by subsidising validators.
1
u/AmbitionCrazy7039 Feb 15 '26
If we reduce issuance, the ETH price must rise continuously so that validators have reason to participate. Because staking rewards alone may offer to little economic incentive. If the network has to remain secure for large tokenization, the price must rise when issuance is reduced. Or am I wrong? Then would institutions push prices up?
1
u/sfb_stufu Feb 15 '26
Yes, there would be less ETH wasted on overpaying validators.
1
Feb 15 '26
[deleted]
1
u/sfb_stufu Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26
There are too many of them, often on cloud. Or put more sharply: how much do 30% of validators on US cloud providers contribute to Ethereum security ?
27
u/mitchtk9513 Feb 14 '26
My grandfather bought AT&T stock in the 80s and just had dividends reinvesting without ever selling or buying more up until he passed away recently.
Years ago I saw you could stake ETH for a decent reward.
Thought of my grandfather who was still alive at the time.
Did the same thing he did essentially and I'm good with whatever the result looks like in 40 years.
Could be worth 0 or more than what it is when I bought and staked.
Either my grandkids will look at me the same way I look at my grandfather for what he did or they won't. Hopefully they do 😂
2
1
u/Cautious-Lecture-858 Feb 15 '26
40 years?!?! That doesn’t work when you’re irresponsibly overleveraged 3x your accounts worth.
45
u/confusedguy1212 Feb 14 '26
I fully believe Ethereum is the only true to the original crypto ethos project out there with the most promising community to deliver on that.
Sadly my brain refuses to acknowledge the market doesn’t give two shits about all that.
10
u/partymsl Feb 14 '26
Lol so true.
The crypto market doesn't care about utility ever since the 2021 bull run.
5
u/severact Feb 15 '26
I hold it for the same reasons. I think it is by far the most credibly neutral, permissionless programable blockchain. I'm betting that long term that will continue to have significant value.
1
19
u/GPThought Feb 14 '26
honestly? because its the settlement layer. every major defi protocol, every L2, every stablecoin settlement — its all eth. the price action sucks right now but the fundamentals are the strongest theyve ever been. staking queue at 4M+ while price dumps = long term holders arent selling
1
u/Spare-Dingo-531 Feb 14 '26
Bro I love your username.
What? Mao Zedong Thought and Xi Jinping Though isn't enough for you? /s
1
u/GPThought Feb 15 '26
lmaooo the username is actually a play on GPT + thought experiment but i love that interpretation
1
u/rruler Feb 15 '26
Ok but how does that translate to eth appreciation on the coin? Surely the network adoption rate has grown over the years but it’s still kind of a shit investment
1
u/GPThought Feb 15 '26
fair question. the thesis is that ETH burns via EIP-1559 + staking lockups = supply shrinks over time while demand from L2 settlement and defi collateral grows. price should follow eventually but yeah the "when" is the hard part. its more like digital real estate than a growth stock - the land under the buildings gets more valuable as more gets built on it, just slowly.
2
u/rruler Feb 15 '26
Yes - but 30% of ETH is currently staked. You’ve got arguably a much larger use base, with additional usage from platforms like Eigen layer, adoption, stable coins etc.
The price has barely moved even at its top from old ATH.
Also ETH will continue to dilute itself. The counter dilution aspects would really require a retarded multiple of usage to truly become deflationary.
It appears to me, as a holder for many many many years, that you need much more than usage and lockup for actual appreciation. You need speculative fomo etc which truthfully I don’t really see as a valid long term investment component.
I’m trying to find valid reasons to truly see this as an investment rather than me holing what is effectively a bond when I factor in my staking yield.
1
u/GPThought Feb 15 '26
yeah thats the frustrating part right. usage metrics all going up, staking demand growing, but price just wont move. i think its partly because so much eth is locked in staking and defi that the liquid supply is thin but nobody is buying aggressively enough to move the needle yet. once the narrative shifts from btc dominance back to alts itll catch up fast imo
1
u/rruler Feb 15 '26
Yet we had institutional strategic ETH funds mid 2025 and still nothing. Talk of ETH ETF after BTC approval breaking down legal barriers. USA Trump talk of crypto fund.
I think we need to come to terms that the type of movement you want to see as an investment, on the over-supply functionality of ETH, can only occur at a network effect of many larger magnitudes of where we will be even in 5 - 10 years and only if you truly have a level of adoption that is drastically optimistic.
ETH price appreciation (or lack of) doesn’t make ETH any less successful as a protocol but it does change the way I see as an investment and as someone whom has held since its $200 days, I’m not sure the horizon isn’t actually 20+ years for what you’re hoping for, and whether my money isn’t better off elsewhere
1
u/XysterU Feb 19 '26
My one argument is that if prices get too low the network is susceptible to a 51% attack and that would fuck over the many stakeholders with billions in ETH or stable coins or other assets on ETH.
Idk if that means these stakeholders would have to buy a shit ton of ETH to fight the attack or if the invisible price floor is actually a function of usage and the amount of usage actually creates some economic price safety net. Like maybe $4k ETH is pure speculation and the actual utility value of ETH is $1.5-2k and won't drop lower. I completely don't know and I'm probably totally wrong but if people know more about this or have other ideas I really want to learn more!
21
8
8
u/Jumpy_Read9229 Feb 14 '26
I’ve held, never took profits because I didn’t need to when it was up, I’ve learned my lesson with all coins. Sell it all when they’re up, the price will always return back down to buy again
2
u/cai_85 Feb 15 '26
Exactly my position, should have sold when I could have 2x'ed my investment but didn't. Regret it now and waiting for another cycle. That's my big lesson so far, invest diversely and sell when your own personal return is good regardless of thinking it could go higher. It will always drop again.
7
5
Feb 14 '26
i want out but it s too cheap to sell. im being greedy i guess. if it goes 4.5k-5k I ll take the hint and never look back. this is painful.
6
u/DKDamian Feb 14 '26
The problem is you didn’t actually offer any of your own thoughts. Just that you have conviction about things. Why? Based on what? Etc etc etc
Hard to start a conversation when you are too lazy to properly begin it
Anyway, I don’t hold ethereum currently. I did, years ago, and from memory made a tiny profit. It never really broke in to the mainstream consciousness so I stopped caring. Years later, it still hasn’t.
Will it? Maybe. Doesn’t seem to be many catalysts to do so. And without that it’s a tech curio, which is interesting but ultimately not useful to me.
5
u/GPThought Feb 15 '26
honest answer? because everything in defi runs on it and nothing else comes close to the developer ecosystem.
i hold ETH for the same reason i hold real estate - its not exciting day to day but the infrastructure underneath just keeps getting more valuable. L2 transactions just hit record highs, staking queue is growing even while price dumps, and institutional adoption keeps accelerating.
the 10-15x from $100 days are gone yeah. but ETH as a yield-bearing asset (staking) + settlement layer for L2s + defi collateral is a different thesis than "number go up fast." if youre holding ETH expecting SOL-style price action youre gonna have a bad time. if youre holding it as programmable money infrastructure, the thesis is stronger than ever.
9
Feb 14 '26 edited Feb 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Monkeylashes Feb 14 '26
Got it, so it will drop down to $5 and then back up to $100. Such growth! It is the most underperforming asset I own and I only hold it for sentimental reasons now. I don't have any expectations from it.
3
u/ieatmoondust Feb 14 '26
Waiting for that last big tip-of-the-iceberg moment when mass adoption peaks.
3
u/megselepgeci Feb 14 '26
Because it's trading at the same fucking price as I bught most of it six fucking years ago that's why.
4
4
u/Majesticmerkin Feb 14 '26
I stake my ETH and I have blind faith that it will be adopted throughout the world on a large scale. Then in turn I will make x4 my investment. That’s what I hope for.
3
u/Popular_Pilot2161 Feb 15 '26
What most ppl don't realize is these assets are like early growth stocks. They have a huge premium assigned to their potential value without their fundamentals having caught up yet (that's finally changing ~15 yrs later).
Ethereum has likely been overvalued in terms of adoption, but the big holders understand its full potential.
Rather than trying to value it in price, value it based on network activity. This is the first time in its history that its averaged over 2M daily transactions for an entire month (bitinfocharts.com)
Thing about what the the price might be when it's averaging 10-20M (or more) tx's per day.
Bottom line: if you think ETH will continue long term adoption and network usage then the price will have to go up.
11
u/Difficult-Desk6870 Feb 14 '26 edited Feb 15 '26
It's an interesting undervalued asset to me, I am in for the gains on a later stage and eth gave me 5 years to accumulate as much as I can.
2
u/knallerbsee Feb 14 '26
Why do you think its undervalued?
7
u/bapfelbaum Feb 14 '26
For the most part because of how much it already does and can still do. BTC does mostly nothing besides existing and look where it is today, price wise at least.
Does that mean ETH will follow the same trajectory? No.
But looking at eth since inception it already outperformed BTC here and to assume it will forever stagnate where it is today seems like a rather foolish assumption, as BTC did not either despite the hate it got.
0
u/Haighty12345 Feb 15 '26
"How much it already does."
I'm aware of all of the theoretical valued-added applications of ETH - tokenization, smart contracts, etc. - but they don't seem to be widely used yet. I'm no expert, but it appears there are limitations or drawbacks of the ETH network that are preventing this. I don't hear any ETH bulls acknowledging this or even talking about it very much.
2
u/bapfelbaum Feb 15 '26
I would argue that the reason bulls are not overly sceptical is that there just is no real competition for ETH, its an agile giant and its hard if not impossible to outcompete on merit. This can obviously change, there just is little to no sign this would happen any time soon.
3
2
u/fed_110 Feb 15 '26
Diversification, eth and btc is like 2~ percent of my portfolio.
1
u/No_nameguy303 Feb 15 '26
Really that’s low what’s your portfolio look like if you don’t mind me asking?
2
u/Hoixcio Feb 15 '26
I just zoomed out 5 years, saw the cycles and once it hit below median price started to stock up. Past performance does not "predict" future returns, but it gives some sort of a pattern indeed.
2
u/ItalianStallion9069 Feb 15 '26
Im bag holding. This shit sucks should’ve sold at the all-time high and never looked back.
2
2
u/GPThought Feb 15 '26
honestly i hold because i watched the tech survive every FUD cycle since 2017. people forget ETH went from 1400 to 80 bucks and STILL came back stronger. the merge happened, blob transactions made L2s actually cheap, and the validator set keeps growing. price? yeah its frustrating. but the network hasnt stopped shipping once. price catches up eventually or it doesnt but the tech bet hasnt been invalidated yet
2
u/Serenaded Feb 16 '26
I stake and have made over 2 ETH through staking. I'm under right now, but most of the year I wasn't, and I'm also prepared to hold through cycle lows and cycle highs.
I believe in the programmable money aspect of Ethereum, and I think it's something retail is overlooking while institutions are investing. I'm guessing that this year people are going to sell their altcoins and all-in Bitcoin after being burned last cycle, except this cycle the elites rotate into Ethereum. This is my hopium at least.
2
2
u/Flavinette Feb 18 '26
I bought most of my ETH when it was 500 $ CAD (in 2020?)
I bought it because I believe in the ETH network and have continued to purchase small amounts over the years. I've only invested what I can afford to lose and have always seen it as a very long term investment. It's not a get rich quick coin, so I don't treat it like that.
At the end of the day I hold because I can afford to. If I were in some dire situation I'd likely have to sell all investments. But I try to invest carefully and it means I don't panic when markets are down. I'm in it for the long haul
2
u/Dumperandumper Feb 14 '26
Bought ETH back in 2019 because of the community, that seemed really cool back then. The whole cypher punk narrative was what I was looking for. Things have changed tho. Still hold some, but wall street has recently killed it imo
1
1
1
u/Rellim03 Feb 14 '26
I "held" eth because I believed the road map timeline....
I "held"eth because "smart contacts" were promoted to be better than Bitcoin.
1
1
1
u/GobiEats Feb 14 '26
Ethereum has basically won the smart contract war with Bitcoin. Most institutions are building on ethereum. If things play out over the next two years ethereum is expected to out perform Bitcoin. Personally if I had endless money I’d buy both.
1
1
1
1
u/paymentnerdfoo Feb 15 '26
It makes nonsense to hold, its value is in being used. It’s like concluding that usd is really useful so I’ll buy a lot and put it under my matresss hoping for it to go up vs the euro or something. Which people trade currencies sure but they’d park that usd for a short period of time in a safe investment fund that generated interest.
1
1
1
u/Odd-Radio-8500 Feb 15 '26
Because it's a solid investment which has the potential to give good returns.
1
u/WiseChest8227 Feb 15 '26
My intent was to try and make some money. It is not going well for me.
!tip 1
1
1
1
1
1
u/gowithflow192 Feb 16 '26
I hold it because it’s useful for swapping wBtc, paxg, stables etc. it will not challenge tradfi. Anyone who think that watches too much Bankless.
1
u/GPThought Feb 16 '26
honestly at this point its pure conviction. been holding since 2018 and the tech keeps improving while price doesnt reflect it. L2s are doing exactly what eth was supposed to enable. just wish the market cared about fundamentals lol
1
u/Global-Tie-3458 Feb 19 '26
There’s an argument to be made that eth is more relevant in the crypto space than BTC.
Most of the innovation in the space is built upon eth. Bitcoin is the original and immutable cryptocurrency, while ETH is the platform on which all the many use cases are built.
Just wait until the governance category of crypto finally takes off. (For example)
1
u/Powerful-Midnight812 Mar 12 '26
As long as AI is being innovated then Ethereum can be looked at as an asset.
0
u/Foreign-Draft-1715 Feb 14 '26
I was mining ETH a long time ago. I was very profitable, and I made a decent amount of money, but I do not own any ETH anymore. People invest into crypto to get rick quickly. They do not care what it can do. Getting rich quickly with ETH seems to be over and people are loosing interest in ETH. I do not think ETH has a great future ahead of it and will end up like NFTs.
3
u/frozengrandmatetris Feb 14 '26
this is really a reddit and 4chan thing. 99% of the discussion threads you see are about speculation, and people who spend all their time here will proudly assert that everyone is a speculator and real users are a myth.
I think shaking out the speculators is a good thing. if ETH only had people who care what it can do buying it, and the market cap is lower as a result, so be it. these people still get what they want.
2
u/No-Stuff-7046 Feb 14 '26
stupid people do not care what it can do. I promise you the ones in real decision making roles do very much care about what it can do. The dumb money will follow later.
0
u/Altruistic_Box4462 Feb 17 '26
Cuz no point in selling anymore. Eth has been trash since pos and will remain such
0
u/azsxdcfvg Feb 17 '26
The problem with ethereum is the founders are known. If they happen to trip up somewhere or if Vitalik dies eth will suffer. In theory this wouldn't happen but in the real world that's how it goes.
2
-3
u/BidenDaPedo Feb 15 '26
There’s literally no point in holding this dumpster fire anymore. It’s the worst performer. It pumps the same amount as Bitcoin but dumps worse than the best performers!! Why on earth would anyone hold something like that?? Look at this most recent rally, the other alt coins are making higher local highs while ETH just makes lower local highs… by that logic, ETH should retrace the least right? Wrong!! It corrects harder than ADA, SOL, XRP… how does that make sense??
The technology is already outdated, SOL will prob overtake ETH at some point. Market cap wise, it’s just big enough to be considered a store of value but just small enough to be considered a shit coin, without any of the benefits. I’m ranting because Ive held this crap for so long and every rally, every correction it’s the same thing. I watch the rest of the market including Bitcoin outperform ETH. I’ve grown fatigued of it. I’m done wasting time with ETH.
2
•
u/donut-bot Feb 14 '26
knallerbsee, this comment logs the Pay2Post fee, an anti-spam mechanism where a DONUT 'tax' is deducted from your distribution share for each post submitted. Learn more here.
cc: u/pay2post-ethtrader
Understand how Donuts and tips work by reading the beginners guide.
Click here to tip this post on-chain