TechFlow news — CoinShares released its latest Ethereum usage report on Tuesday, highlighting that despite the continued expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem, the investment value of its native token ETH remains unclear. The report suggests that ETH's value is primarily driven by demand for transactions on Ethereum, rather than staking yields or other factors. However, current transaction demand is heavily concentrated in a few speculative use cases, raising concerns about the platform’s long-term value.
CoinShares researcher Matthew Kimmell noted that Ethereum usage is largely centered around decentralized exchanges (such as Uniswap) and token transfers—especially stablecoins. While Ethereum has successfully supported various applications, demand for the Ethereum chain itself is trending downward. The rise of Layer 2 solutions has alleviated scalability issues but has also "cannibalized" demand for Ethereum's base layer. Kimmell believes that recent upgrades like EIP-4844, while boosting Layer 2 development, may undermine the economic design advantage of EIP-1559, which aimed to tie ETH's value to demand on its Layer 1 platform. The key challenge ahead lies in fostering on-chain applications that deliver lasting value to users and drive sustainable demand for Ethereum services.
