Ethereum's future has become a big question again after Arthur Hayes gave a clear forecast about the asset's institutional future, price potential, and competition.
He commented on this as Ethereum is now trading near 3,200 USD and has fluctuated between 3,060 and 3,440 USD during the week. Major players like Tom Lee's BitMine have also bought more Ethereum faster than ever.
Ethereum becomes the default choice for institutions
Hayes believes the market still does not understand how strongly traditional institutions want to use Ethereum. He argues that after several failed attempts with private blockchains, banks have now realized the need for a public ledger for settlements.
“These organizations have finally understood that you cannot have a private blockchain; you must use a public blockchain for security and real use,” he said.
He links this change to the growth of stablecoins, which has forced banks to see the value of on-chain settlements.
According to Hayes, Ethereum has the security, liquidity, and developer base that institutions need.
He believes this shift could lead to a strong price increase for Ethereum in the next cycle, which fits well with companies like BitMine accumulating heavily.
BitMine bought 33,504 ETH (112 million USD) this week and 138,452 ETH (~435 million USD) earlier in December. BitMine now owns approximately 3.86 million ETH. Such large purchases strengthen the idea that institutions are preparing for Ethereum's next major cycle.
Hayes believes that Ethereum still lacks the privacy protections that large institutions want. He says this is “the most important thing Ethereum doesn’t have yet,” but he also points out that Vitalik Buterin is working on it.
Despite this shortcoming, he does not believe it should stop institutional investments. Companies will use privacy-focused layer-2 networks and settle on Ethereum.
He believes that Ethereum L1 will always be the “security base” even if activities occur on L2s like Arbitrum or Optimism.
“One may need to discuss how fees will be shared between L2 and Ethereum L1,” he said, but he emphasized that it does not change the fundamentals: institutions will secure their processes with Ethereum.
This aligns with how the market looks now. The whale balance on exchanges is the lowest in several years. Whales have bought over 900,000 ETH in recent weeks according to Santiment data.
Institutional infrastructure continues to grow around the Ethereum base, even as fees fall due to the increased use of L2 networks.
A narrow field of winners: Ethereum first, Solana second
Hayes believes that the public blockchains of the future will cluster around a few. He sees Ethereum as the clear long-term winner, with Solana as a distant second.
He explains Solana's rise from 7 USD to 300 USD with intense memecoin activity in 2023 and 2024. But he believes Solana “needs something new” to surpass Ethereum again.
He believes that Solana remains important, but he does not think Solana can reach Ethereum's institutional role or long-term price strength.
Hayes believes that almost all other L1s are structurally weak. He dismisses chains like Monad with high FDV as overvalued projects that are likely to crash after an initial price increase.
50 ETH could make you a millionaire before the next election
Hayes was most clear in his price forecast when he was asked how much ETH one needs to become a millionaire in the next cycle.
He said Ethereum could reach 20,000 USD. That means 50 ETH is sufficient for a portfolio of over one million USD.
The BitMex founder believes this goal could be reached by the next U.S. presidential election. His view aligns with today’s supply situation: reserves on exchanges are decreasing, institutions are buying, and large buyers like BitMine are putting hundreds of millions of USD into ETH.
If Ethereum fails to meet these expectations, Hayes argues it is because the narrative does not hold.
If stablecoin usage declines or institutions exit chain trading, Bitcoin could outperform Ethereum for a long time.
He still believes that today’s market favors Ethereum’s dominance in the long run – especially as banks prepare to use Web3 strategies on public platforms.
