Ethereum advances technically, but is still seeking its "Bitcoin moment"

Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: Ethereum advances technically but still seeking its “Bitcoin moment” Original Link: It’s never easy to be an Ethereum maximalist. It’s true that ETH reached a new all-time high this year; but, in light of the numerous recent technical and economic triumphs of the Ethereum network, this appreciation still seems quite insufficient for many.

Ethereum has always been an anomaly, situated somewhere between Bitcoin’s legitimacy as a proven store of value and all other existing crypto tokens. It certainly is in a league of its own compared to most other tokens — but it still hasn’t had its “Bitcoin moment.”

At the start of each new year, questions and themes that will likely define the next 12 months are investigated. Today, the question is — if we dare: will 2026 finally be the year when Ethereum begins to grow significantly in value?

Some say yes.

“Now is the time,” said Vivek Raman, co-founder of a Wall Street firm focused on Ethereum. “And I don’t say that lightly.”

Raman stated that he has seen Wall Street giants migrate en masse to Ethereum this year and anticipates that the ETH will soon become the “standard asset” of an increasingly on-chain traditional economy.

After 10 years of waiting, this “hockey stick adoption moment” has finally arrived, he said.

Ethereum and tokenization

As tokenized assets become more common and institutions grow increasingly sophisticated in how they interact with them, these advances could unlock billions of dollars more in value within the Ethereum ecosystem.

“Tokenizing a Treasury bond was 2024,” said James Smith, head of the Ethereum Foundation ecosystem. “Making it work within DeFi is 2026.”

Smith predicts that tokenized assets merely as a novelty will disappear next year, while “income-generating assets or collateral in DeFi attract capital.”

These developments could dramatically increase the amount of capital flowing through Ethereum — and thus, the value of ETH as the engine of a network that supports not only DeFi but increasingly larger portions of the traditional economy.

While this process could start as early as next year, don’t expect ETH to reach BTC until next Christmas — or something even close to that.

“ETH, in the end, will rise to become a store of value alongside Bitcoin,” said Raman. “But it’s basically five years behind where Bitcoin’s inflection point was.”