Author: imToken
Ethereum is standing at an unprecedented 'multi-narrative resonance' node.
On-chain, the scale of ETH staking continues to rise, gradually establishing a 'risk-free interest rate anchor'; on the traditional finance level, spot ETFs have been operational for over a year, with trading volume and net inflows rapidly increasing, marking the ongoing inflow of compliant funds; on the corporate level, more and more U.S.-listed companies are choosing to strategically include ETH in their treasury reserves.
Staking, ETFs, and corporate treasuries, these three seemingly independent threads, are resonating with each other, jointly promoting ETH from a single cryptocurrency to a comprehensive financial asset with yield attributes, compliant channels, and corporate reserve value.
If the story of Bitcoin is 'digital gold', then Ethereum’s narrative is quietly shifting towards 'the global ledger', and it is expected to reach a key 'resonance moment' in 2025.
Staking steadily rises, ETH 'benchmark interest rate' emerges
Since the Shanghai upgrade in April 2023 that opened the staking withdrawal feature, Ethereum has completely resolved the bottleneck risk of exits, unleashing the growth potential of the staking ecosystem. Subsequently, the derivatives market based on LSD has rapidly expanded, driving the ETH staking rate continuously higher.
As of the time of writing, the amount of ETH staked has surpassed 33.8 million, calculated at the current price of about $140 billion, accounting for over 25% of the total supply, a significant increase from around 10% a few years ago. This not only strengthens network security but also enhances ETH's scarcity from a supply-demand perspective.
More importantly, ETH staking is gradually becoming the 'interest rate anchor' of on-chain finance.
Over the past year, the annualized staking return rate of 3%-5% has been widely accepted by the market, even regarded by some institutional research reports as the 'on-chain version of Treasury bond yields', forming an implicit contrast with U.S. Treasury yield curves. This characteristic makes ETH not just a trading asset but gives it the underlying logic of quasi-fixed income products.
Of course, a noteworthy reverse trend has recently emerged—since July 16, the number of ETH unstaking requests has surged, with validator exit requests soaring from fewer than 2,000 to 475,000 by July 22, and the waiting time has lengthened from less than one hour to over eight days.
According to The Block data, approximately 670,000 ETH (about $3.1 billion) are currently in the exit queue, far exceeding new staking demand, with an expected processing time of nearly 12 days. The main reasons driving a significant amount of ETH unstaking are the unwinding of leveraged staking cycles against a backdrop of rising prices, risks of LST decoupling, and arbitrage opportunities, making Lido, EthFi, and Coinbase the primary sources of exits.
Source: The Block
However, despite the short-term fluctuations brought by the wave of unstaking, from a long-term perspective, ETH staking has gradually become the on-chain 'risk-free interest rate anchor', becoming one of the underlying financial logics of ETH.
It is noteworthy that the yield on U.S. Treasury bonds is expected to remain in the 4%-5% range in 2024, which makes ETH staking rates temporarily seem less attractive. However, as the Federal Reserve begins to cut rates in 2025, ETH's 3%-5% staking yield regains competitiveness, and in some risk models, is seen as 'excess return'.
This means that a deeper implicit connection is being established between ETH's on-chain interest rates and the global liquidity environment, especially as re-staking protocols like EigenLayer have absorbed over $10 billion of ETH participation, giving rise to a chain logic of 'staking rates → re-staking premiums → protocol security'.
In other words, ETH is not only an asset in itself but is gradually becoming the underlying collateral of the Web 3 financial system.
ETFs become the main channel for traditional funds
In May 2024, the U.S. SEC approved 19 b-4 applications for eight Ethereum spot ETFs, which officially began trading on July 23, marking the formal opening of the compliance channel for ETH and Wall Street. To date, Ethereum spot ETFs have been operational for over a year.
Objectively speaking, ETFs, as 'compliance gateways', provide traditional institutions with direct channels to allocate ETH, reducing compliance friction on financial and audit levels. According to SoSoValue data, as of now, the total net asset value of U.S. Ethereum spot ETFs has exceeded $27 billion, accounting for about 5.34% of Ethereum's market value, with cumulative net inflows reaching $12.4 billion since their listing.
However, the market often overestimates the short-term effects of new things while underestimating their long-term impact. The development of ETH spot ETFs reflects this pattern, as the true explosion of ETFs did not manifest from the beginning—before May of this year, the average daily trading volume of ETH ETFs was still relatively low, with limited market interest.
Source: SoSoValue
The turning point appeared on August 11, 2025, when the net inflow of Ethereum ETFs exceeded $1 billion in a single day for the first time, with BlackRock's ETHA attracting $640 million and Fidelity's FETH attracting $277 million. The capital siphoning effect of these two giants has highlighted the institutional shift of Ethereum ETFs.
The significance of ETFs lies in that they are not only a 'channel' for funds but also a 'legitimate status' on compliance audits and financial statements, greatly reducing the resistance for institutions to hold ETH. Another profound significance is that it opens up arbitrage and allocation paths for cross-border financial institutions.
More importantly, the concentration of ETF holdings has begun to show, with BlackRock and Fidelity's two ETFs accounting for two-thirds of the U.S. ETH ETF market. This trend of centralization not only brings a capital siphoning effect but may also mean that the 'institutional pricing' characteristics of ETH will become increasingly apparent in the future.
ETH accelerates its inflow into U.S. stock balance sheets
If MicroStrategy's inclusion of BTC represents a milestone case of public companies incorporating crypto assets into their balance sheets, then starting in 2025, ETH is also welcoming a similar turning point.
Recently, an increasing number of U.S. stock companies have chosen to include ETH in their treasuries, and not merely as a symbolic holding, but as a large-scale, strategic allocation.
Taking BitMine as an example, according to official disclosures, its holdings of crypto assets have exceeded $6.612 billion, an increase of about $1.7 billion from $4.9 billion the previous week, of which BitMine holds 1.523 million ETH (calculated at the current price of $4,326 per ETH) and also holds 192 BTC.
Source: BitMine
At the same time, Nasdaq-listed company Cosmos Health also announced a securities purchase agreement with a U.S. institutional investor worth up to $300 million, thereby initiating an ETH treasury strategy and providing custodial and staking infrastructure through BitGo Trust.
This proactive inclusion in corporate treasuries differs from the passive allocation of ETFs: ETFs mainly bear the exposure demand of financial products, while corporations directly purchase ETH and include it in their treasuries, indicating that ETH is becoming a practical settlement medium and reserve asset. Whether for financial diversification, cross-border payments, or employee incentives and R&D incentives, ETH is beginning to show its potential as a 'liquid asset'.
Overall, after experiencing a wave of widespread pessimism, Ethereum's multiple narratives are forming a synergy:
Staking yields have brought ETH a quasi-'Treasury bond' interest rate anchor;
ETFs have opened up the allocation channels for compliant funds;
Corporate treasuries further endow ETH with real value for reserves and payments;
The three intertwine, jointly promoting ETH from 'cryptocurrency' to 'financial infrastructure asset'.
If Bitcoin represents 'digital gold' in corporate treasuries, then Ethereum's value narrative is gradually pointing to 'the liquidity core of the global ledger'.
