David Hoffman revealed that he has exited his Ether holdings, explaining that he believes the long standing “ETH is money” narrative has largely reached its full potential, even though he still remains highly optimistic about Ethereum as a blockchain network.
Hoffman said the decision was personally difficult because much of his career, business, community, and identity had been built around Ethereum.
Ethereum Pursued a Different Vision Than Bitcoin
In a recent post, Hoffman explained that the original investment thesis behind ETH relied on Ethereum successfully coordinating across several areas simultaneously, including decentralized governance, leadership, Layer 2 ecosystems, roadmap execution, and technological innovation.
He emphasized that Ethereum deliberately chose a more ambitious direction compared to Bitcoin.
According to Hoffman, Bitcoin simplified its blockchain architecture primarily to maximize the value and monetary role of BTC, while Ethereum focused on building a broader ecosystem centered around decentralized applications, decentralized finance, tokenization, and blockchain infrastructure.
He argued that Ethereum successfully achieved much of that vision and earned its current market capitalization as a result. However, he also suggested that the opportunity for ETH to experience another major structural revaluation may now be diminishing.
Crypto’s Broader Vision Lost Momentum
Hoffman also reflected on what he described as the “strong version” of crypto, which once revolved around decentralized finance, NFTs, DAOs, and crypto native economic systems.
According to him, that broader movement struggled to maintain lasting mainstream adoption beyond the 2020 to 2022 cycle.
He stated that crypto eventually became increasingly associated with scams, speculation, and exploitative behavior, weakening the social trust needed for ETH to fully function as a global form of money.
Hoffman further argued that Ethereum’s utility increasingly benefits other forms of value, especially stablecoins and tokenized dollars, rather than ETH itself.
He described Ethereum as “a giver, not a taker,” explaining that the network provides secure blockspace, tokenization infrastructure, and DeFi support at relatively low cost instead of maximizing direct value extraction for ETH holders.
According to Hoffman, Ethereum’s architecture prioritizes ecosystem expansion, applications, and rollups above the monetary dominance of ETH, making it harder for the asset to achieve true global money status unless it reaches overwhelming market dominance.
Bearish Sentiment Around Ethereum Continues to Grow
Hoffman’s comments arrive during a period of growing pessimism surrounding Ethereum.
A recent report from Santiment found that social media discussions around Ethereum have increasingly shifted from optimism toward frustration and concerns about additional downside.
The analytics platform said many traders now view ETH as “dead money” compared to stronger performing crypto assets in 2026, particularly as weakening ETF inflows, slowing on chain activity, and increasing competition from ecosystems such as Solana and BB Chain continue to pressure sentiment.
Speculation about prominent Ethereum figures reducing or fully exiting their ETH positions, including discussions involving Hoffman, has also fueled uncertainty as traders question whether insiders are losing confidence in the asset.#crypto#cryptonews https://coinsignals.nethttps://t.me/coinsignalpublic
