Ethereum's Success May No Longer Benefit ETH Holders

David Hoffman, co-founder of the influential crypto media platform Bankless, has publicly disclosed that he sold his entire $ETH position, a move that drew wide attention given his long-standing reputation as one of Ethereum's most vocal supporters.

Hoffman had built much of his public profile around a strongly pro-Ethereum investment thesis, making his exit a notable departure from his previous stance.The exact amount of ETH sold was not disclosed. Hoffman only confirmed that he had sold his entire position.

The "ETH Is Money" Thesis Under Pressure

Speaking on the Bankless podcast, Hoffman remained upbeat about the Ethereum network itself, but drew a sharp distinction between the health of the protocol and the prospects for the token. "I expect Ethereum as a network to do exceptionally well from here on out," he said. "I think only a marginal amount of that success will be reflected in ETH."

His argument centers on where value now flows within the Ethereum ecosystem. Rather than accruing to $ETH holders, he contends that the gains are increasingly captured by applications, stablecoins, and layer 2 networks built on top of Ethereum's base layer. Ethereum's layer 2 scaling roadmap, covering networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, is causing retail users to migrate from the main chain to L2s, meaning that even as the Ethereum ecosystem gains more market share than ever before, less fee income goes directly toward burning mainnet ETH.

That dynamic has weighed on $ETH's price performance. Fee generation on the base layer no longer scales cleanly with usage, and markets have struggled to price this shift. ETH lagged Bitcoin through much of 2025 and remains well below its previous all-time high.US spot Ethereum ETFs posted eight straight days of net outflows between 11 and 20 May, totalling $431 million.

A Symbolic Shift for Ethereum's Community

The sale coincides with a broader transition at Bankless. The sale comes as the media outlet is transitioning into its "second era" of operations, said co-founder Ryan Sean Adams.Adams stated that he remains optimistic about ETH.Adams is stepping into a more backseat role at Bankless, reducing his involvement in content direction and guest interviews while continuing to appear regularly on the podcast.

Hoffman selling his ETH will not, by itself, move markets. But the Bankless dissolution matters as a cultural data point precisely because that platform spent years arguing that holding ETH was a values statement as much as an investment thesis. When the people who built that argument no longer apply it to their own portfolios, something has shifted.

Hoffman was clear that his exit from $ETH does not signal a turn against Ethereum. "People are thinking that I'm like swapping to be like an Ethereum antagonist. Not at all the case," he said, adding that he intends to keep covering Ethereum's developments. "I'm just not holding ETH, just doing it while I'm not holding ETH."

The debate over whether Ethereum's network growth can translate into token value is not new, but Hoffman's exit has given it fresh urgency. The network has achieved what it set out to do: scale without sacrificing security or decentralization. That success has unlocked broader adoption but has also complicated how value is captured.

Sources:Bankless Podcast: ROLLUP, David Sold His ETHCrypto Briefing: Bankless Co-Founder Sells Last of His ETHBlockhead: Bitcoin Keeps Finding New Believers, Ethereum Keeps Losing Old Ones