The long-term expectation for Ethereum is back in the spotlight after Arthur Hayes gave an extensive prediction about the institutional future, price potential, and competitive position of the asset.
His comments came when Ethereum was trading around $3,200, fluctuating between $3,060 and $3,440 over the past week. Major parties like Tom Lee's BitMine rapidly expanded their Ethereum positions.
Ethereum is becoming the institutional standard
Hayes thinks the market still underestimates how strongly traditional institutions plan to integrate Ethereum. According to him, banks realize after years of failed experiments with private blockchains that they need a public settlement layer.
"These organizations finally understand that you cannot use a private blockchain; for security and real use, a public blockchain must be deployed," he said.
He links this change to the growth of stablecoins, causing banks to have to accept the value of on-chain settlement.
According to Hayes, Ethereum is well positioned as the only platform with the security, liquidity, and developer base that institutions need.
He expects this change to lead to a significant price increase for Ethereum in the next cycle, on top of the aggressive buildup of reserves by companies like BitMine.
BitMine bought 33,504 ETH ($112 million) this week and previously 138,452 ETH (~$435 million) in December, bringing the total to about 3.86 million ETH. These large purchases are fueling the narrative that institutions are preparing for the next big cycle of Ethereum.
Hayes acknowledges that Ethereum still does not have the privacy guarantees that major institutions demand. According to him, this is "the biggest thing Ethereum is still missing," but he says that Vitalik Buterin's roadmap is actively working on it.
However, he does not think that institutional adoption will be delayed because of this. Instead, enterprises will use privacy-focused Layer-2 networks while leaning on Ethereum for settlement.
He believes that Ethereum L1 remains the 'security layer' regardless of whether activity takes place on L2s like Arbitrum or Optimism.
"There may need to be discussions about the distribution of costs between L2s and Ethereum L1," he said, but he emphasized that this does not change the core: institutions continue to secure their activities with Ethereum.
This aligns with the current trends in the ecosystem. Exchange balances are at multi-year lows, and whales have gathered more than 900,000 ETH in recent weeks, according to Santiment data.
An increasing amount of institutional infrastructure is being built around the Ethereum base layer, while fees are decreasing due to the shift to L2 solutions.
A limited number of winners: Ethereum first, Solana second
Hayes believes that the number of public blockchains will be very small in the future. He sees Ethereum as the clear long-term winner, with Solana as a distant but stable number two.
He attributes the strong rise of Solana from $7 to $300 to the intense meme coin activity in 2023 and 2024. Still, he says that Solana needs "a new asset" to beat Ethereum again.
He expects Solana to remain relevant but does not think it will match the institutional role or long-term price strength of Ethereum.
Hayes sees almost all other L1s as structurally weak. He dismisses chains with high FDVs, such as Monad, as inflated projects that are likely to collapse after the initial hype.
50 ETH needed to become a millionaire in the next election
Hayes gave his clearest numerical price expectation when he was asked how much ETH one would need to become a millionaire in the next cycle.
He said that Ethereum could reach $20,000, which means that 50 ETH is enough for a portfolio of one million.
The BitMEX founder expects this price target to be reached before the next U.S. presidential elections. His expectation aligns with the current situation: exchange reserves are shrinking, institutions are building positions, and buyers like BitMine are investing hundreds of millions in ETH.
According to Hayes, things will go wrong if Ethereum does not fulfill these expectations due to a break in the narrative.
If the use of stablecoins decreases or institutions are less active in on-chain trading, Bitcoin could outperform Ethereum for a long time.
Still, he believes that the current market structure favors Ethereum in the long term—especially now that banks are preparing to execute Web3 strategies via public infrastructure.
