At 10 years old, Ethereum’s future is brighter than ever despite recent setbacks
Omar Marques | Lightrocket | Getty Images
It’s been a decade since Ethereum’s inception, and although its native ether token has largely struggled for the last half of it, its future looks brighter than ever.
Ether has become more attractive to institutions in recent weeks largely due to legislation around stablecoins – most of which are issued on Ethereum – being signed into the first-ever U.S. crypto law. There’s also the successful June IPO of Circle, the issuer of the second-largest stablecoin, new leadership at the Ethereum foundation, and, most recently, a boom in ether treasury firms and corporate entrants.
Until very recently, however, it seemed like ether, better known by its ticker ETH, was left for dead. For one, institutional investors struggled to understand its purpose. While bitcoin’s primary digital gold narrative was clear and digestible, Ethereum’s was more complex, having been likened to a world computer, a web3 app store, digital silver, digital oil, ultrasound money and more.
Ether (ETH) last five years
It’s also suffered from weaker revenue following a big technical upgrade last year and has dealt with increasing competition from Solana, which aims to be the solution to Ethereum’s notorious high costs and slow speeds.
The ether ETFs, now about a year old, were starting to look like zombie funds. They’ve amassed about $9 billion in net inflows since listing, helped largely by the latest resurgence, versus bitcoin ETFS’ $36 billion in their first year of trading. The April sell-off in risk assets made things even worse for the coin.
The price of ETH really took off during the 2021 bull market, when it hit an all-time high near $5,000 – a rally characterized by the rise of decentralized finance, better known as DeFi, and NFTs. But it’s struggled to fully come back since the 2022 crash and hasn’t yet revisited those highs. This week, it’s trading near $4,000 — a psychologically and technically challenging resistance level for ETH investors.
“ETH today is roughly where bitcoin was in January 2019 – that’s when bitcoin turned 10,” said Avichal Garg, a co-founder and general partner at Electric Capital, which has long invested heavily in the Ethereum ecosystem. “It’s not a surprise that after 10 years of uptime, that’s just how long it takes for people to get their heads around this. I suspect the next four to five years is where ETH has its institutional arc, the same way that bitcoin did between 2019 and 2024.”
The last 10 years
The idea for Ethereum was conceived by the computer programmer Vitalik Buterin, an early believer in bitcoin who saw the original cryptocurrency network as valuable, but recognized it was not equipped technologically to handle bigger and more sophisticated applications. The whitepaper, written by Buterin and others to detail the vision and use cases of the cryptocurrency, was released in 2013 and the network launched on July 30, 2015.
Over the years, it has powered crypto trends like DeFi, NFTs and decentralized autonomous organizations and tokenization. During the 2021 bull market, it was normal at one point to pay more for transaction fees than the actual NFT or DeFi trade – sometimes more than double.
It initially launched as a protocol similar to the Bitcoin network. But in 2022, it underwent a technical transition called the Merge, which was meant to increase its processing capacity and improve its security in an energy efficient way. It also opened investors up to staking opportunities, which allow them to earn “yield,” or rewards, on their ether holdings.
The next 10 years
Despite the apparent froth in the market – stocks at new records, the return of meme stocks, crypto treasury companies multiplying by the day – the current hype around Ethereum seems to have done a 180 from the last bull run. Instead of meme coins and NFTs, the future is the tokenization of dollars and other traditional assets by the world’s biggest institutions. With a more favorable regulatory environment, they’re embracing crypto technology’s lower costs, faster settlement times, greater transparency about ownership and performance and programmable terms, as well as increased accessibility for retail investors and global reach.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has said he sees the “tokenization of every financial asset” as an important step in “the technological revolution in the financial markets.”
Despite Ethereum’s shortcomings, it still leads its competition in the most important factor.
“The North Star that Ethereum has stuck to from the very beginning was a maximally decentralized network,” said Austin King, co-founder and CEO of Omni Network, a blockchain platform that operates on top of Ethereum. “As stablecoins and institutional interest is starting to grow, we really are seeing the value proposition of that extreme level of decentralization really showing once again.”
“So much of the value that this whole technology class is providing is about removing the need to rely on other parties,” he added. “Solana is an incredible network … but where Ethereum really shines is the decentralization of the network. And if you are managing hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions of dollars of assets, what you care about most is ensuring that you actually really do have a neutral platform that people can operate on.”
Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and chief executive officer of financial technology company Affirm, arrives at the Sun Valley Resort for the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Affirm shares rose 15% in extended trading on Thursday after the provider of buy now, pay later loans reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter.
Here’s how the company did versus LSEG consensus estimates:
- EPS: 20 cents vs. 11 cents estimated
- Revenue: $876 million vs. $837 million estimated
Revenue climbed 33% in the period from $659 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Gross merchandise volume rose 43% to $10.4 billion from $7.2 billion a year ago.
Affirm reported net income of $69.2 million, or 20 cents a share, after recording a loss a year earlier of $45.1 million, or 14 cents a share.
“This consistent execution led Affirm to achieve operating income profitability in FQ4’25 – right on the schedule we committed to a year ago,” the company said in its shareholder letter.
For the first quarter, Affirm said revenue will be between $855 million and $885 million, while gross merchandise volume will be $10.1 billion to 10.4 billion.
Shares of Affirm were up 31% this year before the after-hours pop, topping the Nasdaq’s 12% gain.
Affirm, which went public in 2021, faces growing competition in e-commerce. It has partnerships with Amazon and Shopify, but Walmart recently shifted to competitor Klarna, which is expected to go public in the near future. Last year, Affirm announced a deal with Apple.
Elon Musk reacts during a press event with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured), at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
Elon Musk’s fervent promotion of Tesla‘s self-driving technology isn’t doing much to win over prospective buyers.
According to a new survey, more U.S. consumers say that Tesla’s FSD, or Full Self-Driving (Supervised) systems, would push them away from the brand rather than drawing them to it.
The Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report for August, published by political consulting firm Slingshot Strategies, polled 8,000 Americans. Only 14% of those surveyed said FSD would make them more likely to buy a Tesla, while 35% said the technology would make them less likely to purchase one.
The remaining 51% said the availability of FSD would make no difference to them in terms of their car buying decisions. Nearly half of consumers surveyed by Slingshot said they think FSD technology should be illegal.
For Tesla, the troubling results land in the middle of a sales slump resulting from an aging lineup of electric vehicles and increased competition from rivals. There’s also reputational damage in response to Musk, his incendiary political rhetoric, work with the Trump administration and support of Germany’s far-right AfD party.
Sales of Tesla cars in Europe plunged 40% in July from a year earlier, the seventh consecutive month of declines.
In the robotaxi market, Tesla is lagging Alphabet-owned Waymo, and Baidu’s Apollo Go. It’s now in the early stages of testing a ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, with hopes to reach more cities this year. Cars in Austin have human supervisors on board, while those in San Francisco have drivers at the wheel.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has said the future of Tesla hangs on its ability to deliver autonomous vehicles and related services. He recently said a new variant of the Model Y, which launched in China, won’t “start production in the U.S. until the end of next year,” and “might not ever, given the advent of self-driving in America.”
For now, Tesla still relies on EV sales for the vast majority of its revenue, though Musk has touted FSD as one of the company’s big advantages over competitors.
Last month, executives suggested that Tesla has a market education problem when it comes to driving adoption of FSD.
“The vast majority of people don’t know it exists,” Musk said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “And it’s still like half of Tesla owners who could use it, haven’t tried it even once.”
Musk said he would start telling customers about FSD when they bring their cars in for service, and would begin reaching out to drivers, sending them videos of how it works.
Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja said on the July earnings call that people who subscribe to the premium FSD option get something like a “personal chauffeur” for about $3.33 a day.
The version of FSD Supervised that Tesla sells today is available to owners for $99 per month or an up-front purchase. The system gives users a limited set of self-driving capabilities on residential and city streets.
On Thursday, Tesla sent out a promotion offering 0% APR financing for customers ordering a new Model 3 by Sept. 1, as long as they add FSD Supervised to their order, or transfer it from their previously owned Tesla.
‘Holding AV manufacturers responsible’
Musk has said in posts on X that FSD can “can operate in all conditions,” will “save lives” and will be a “life-changing product” for many people. He’s also shared user-generated videos showing Tesla owners using FSD without their hands on the wheel.
However, in owners manuals, Tesla lists many conditions in which FSD Supervised may not be reliable, and warns users to keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times, and be ready to take over steering or braking.
Among the subset of survey respondents actively looking to buy a fully electric vehicle, only 20% said they were more likely to buy a Tesla because of FSD, while 33% said they were less likely. Evan Roth Smith, Slingshot’s head of research, said a lack of clarity and honesty in the company’s marketing could be a factor.
Most consumers polled by the firm want clear and strong regulations in the U.S. governing autonomous vehicles, whether they’re fully or partially automated.
“There is strong support for holding AV manufacturers responsible for accidents and requiring stricter regulatory and advertising guardrails around features such as FSD,” the Slingshot report said.
Smith said the data shows that beyond its FSD woes, Tesla has “the worst reputation of any EV maker in the U.S.”
“The drop in the company’s brand reputation this year is remarkable,” he said, adding that recent product liability lawsuits and verdicts may be playing a role.
In early August, a jury found Tesla partially liable for a fatal crash where the driver was relying on its autopilot systems. Tesla, which plans to appeal the decision, must pay around $243 million in damages to victims and a survivor.
In the past two months, the number of consumers who view Tesla cars as unsafe has increased to 36% from 34%, the Slingshot report found, while those viewing Tesla as very safe fell to 13% from 17%.
Honda, Toyota and Chevrolet were seen as safest among the greatest number of respondents.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment. Slingshot said it sent the survey results to the company but also didn’t hear back from the automaker.
Tesla may find that owners in other markets embrace its brand, and FSD, with greater enthusiasm. The company just started offering FSD Supervised in Australia this week.
Read Slingshot’s full Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report for August 2025 here.
WATCH: Wedbush’s Ives says 80% of Musk lawsuit against Apple, OpenAI is ‘noise’
A Dell Technologies sign is seen in Round Rock, Texas, on June 2, 2023.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Despite beating on its top and bottom lines, shares of Dell Technologies fell more than 5% Thursday in extended trading after giving third-quarter earnings per share guidance that below Wall Street’s expectations.
Here’s how the systems integrator did versus LSEG consensus estimates:
- EPS: $2.32, adjusted vs. $2.30 estimated
- Revenue: $29.78 billion vs. $29.17 billion estimated
Dell raised its full year outlook for revenue to be $107 billion at its midpoint and diluted earnings per share to $9.55 at the midpoint, topping Wall Street estimates of $104.6 billion and $9.38 per share.
However, Dell’s guidance for third-quarter earnings per share of $2.45 came in short versus LSEG’s mark of $2.55, despite Dell’s guide for $27 billion in third-quarter revenue topping estimates of $26.1 billion.
Dell said that part of the reason its profit forecast is concentrated in the fourth quarter is due to seasonality, particularly in its storage business.
For the second quarter, overall revenue rose 19% on an annual basis. That was driven by the company’s Servers and Networking revenue, including AI servers, which came in at $12.9 billion, which was up 69% on an annual basis.
Dell is one of Nvidia’s key customers. Dell buys chips from the AI leader and builds computers around them, which it sells to end-users such as CoreWeave, a cloud service. Dell said it shipped $10 billion in AI servers in its past two quarters.
Dell said that it now plans to ship $20 billion of artificial intelligence servers in its fiscal 2026, double what it sold last year.
However, the company’s storage revenue declined 3% to $3.86 billion and missed a StreetAccount estimate of $4.1 billion in sales.
Revenue in the company’s client solutions group, which includes PC sales to enterprises, rose 1% on an annual basis to $12.5 billion. While it used to be Dell’s largest business group, in recent quarters it has grown much slowly than the company’s data center business.
Dell said it spent $1.3 billion on share repurchases and dividends during the quarter.
WATCH: Nvidia’s data center opportunity is still enormous and it’s early, says Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon
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