Analysts rebut the argument that Ethereum's liquidity moat has been breached: ETH still holds value as a reserve asset, with 36% of the supply already staked

Blockworks analyst Jake Koch-Gallup published a rebuttal to the viewpoint that Ethereum is losing its liquidity moat, arguing that despite the challenges to ETH's value capture ability and stablecoin market share, its reserve asset characteristics, Layer 2 ecosystem, and institutional adoption still constitute a long-term competitive advantage.

In response to the issue of low on-chain revenue for Ethereum, Jake pointed out that ETH's valuation depends not only on actual economic value (REV) but also includes reserve asset and collateral premiums, with ETH's market capitalization currently about 1,100 times the REV of the past 12 months. Additionally, the development of Layer 2 networks such as Robinhood Chain and Base can still strengthen the Ethereum ecosystem, rather than indicating that funds and applications are completely leaving Ethereum. Jake also noted that Ethereum currently accounts for about 65% of the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi, with approximately 45% of the on-chain managed scale in real-world assets (RWA), while spot ETFs and corporate treasuries collectively hold about 13% of the total ETH supply, and about 36% of the ETH supply is currently staked.

Although Ethereum's stablecoin market share has gradually faced dilution pressure from around 51%, Jake believes that as the overall stablecoin market expands, its absolute scale may continue to grow. However, Jake also acknowledged that relying solely on ETH's reserve asset premium, without sufficient revenue and value return mechanisms, raises questions about its valuation sustainability.