A $14 Trillion Wall Street Firm Just Changed Everything for Ethereum

“When I came up with Ethereum, my first first thought was, ‘OK, this thing is too good to be true.’ As it turned out, the core Ethereum idea was good – fundamentally, completely sound.”

– Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum

July 18, 2025 — Back in 2022, I put out a video where I argued Ethereum wasn’t just another cryptocurrency…

It was starting to look like a global financial system that could one day compete with the U.S. dollar

Fast forward to this past week, where Ethereum (ETH) has jumped 22%, blowing past $3,400 and outperforming nearly every other major asset class.

Turn Your Images On

Ethereum prices have broken higher in recent weeks as cryptocurrency adoption accelerates
Source: coinmarketcap.com

Some analysts have attributed this rally to renewed optimism around crypto ETFs or broader market momentum.

Others pointed to Ethereum’s surging activity across Layer‑2 networks, which act like express lanes built on top of Ethereum to make transactions faster and cheaper.

But I believe something else played a much bigger role in this week’s ETH rally.

And it came from Fidelity.

The 78-year-old financial giant, which manages over $14 trillion in assets, just published a report that backs up exactly what I said back in 2022.

According to Fidelity, Ethereum isn’t a tech investment.

It’s a sovereign digital economy.

Here’s what that means…

Continued Below…

A Protocol With GDP

According to this recently released report, Fidelity’s analysts are now tracking Ethereum the same way governments track nations.

They’re measuring its GDP.

Of course, they can’t do this by measuring tax receipts or industrial output.

Instead, they get to this number by measuring ETH’s daily on-chain activity.

Ethereum is currently processing over 3 million daily users across its expanding web of Layer-2 chains like Arbitrum, Base and Optimism.

Turn Your Images On

Ethereum’s transactions and total value continue to rise, signaling increasing value of Ethereum itself, which should translate to higher prices
Source: Fidelity

These networks have become critical infrastructure, supporting everything from gaming and trading to social apps and decentralized finance.

Every time someone swaps tokens, mints an NFT or runs a smart contract on these networks, they pay a fee in ETH.

These are called gas fees, and they function like transaction taxes.

The more demand there is for Ethereum’s blockspace, the more users pay in gas.

And right now, that demand is sky high.

In fact, Ethereum generates millions of dollars in gas fees every single day.

According to Fidelity, 47% of those fees come from financial applications, while 25% come from trading and 6% are generated from art and entertainment.

Turn Your Images On

Ethereum continues to demonstrate a wide variety of use cases.
Source: Fidelity

This is the sign of a growing, diversified digital economy.

Yet contrary to what you might think, as more activity flows into Ethereum’s economy, ETH becomes more valuable.

That’s because ETH is the price of admission to use the network.

You can’t transact on Ethereum without paying gas. And you can’t pay gas in dollars or stablecoins.

Only ETH.

Every transaction, every contract and every app requires ETH to function.

In that sense, ETH isn’t just a token. It’s the currency of a digital nation.

And like any currency, how it’s issued and how much of it exists matters.

That’s why Ethereum’s approach to managing ETH supply is one of the most important design decisions it’s ever made.

Back in 2021, Ethereum implemented a major change to how fees are handled. Instead of paying all gas fees to miners or validators, a portion of those fees is now burned.

That means they are removed from circulation permanently.

The more demand there is for Ethereum’s blockspace, the more ETH gets destroyed. And the more ETH gets destroyed, the more valuable the remaining supply becomes.

It’s just like a central bank tightening the money supply in response to inflation.

Only there’s no central banker.

It’s all hard-coded.

Here’s My Take

You might have heard the argument that Ethereum is “the world computer.”

It means that Ethereum can run software, just like your laptop or phone. But instead of a single device, it runs across thousands of computers around the world.

It’s a decentralized platform where anyone can deploy code that executes exactly as written, but without a company in the middle.

In practice, this means Ethereum isn’t just a ledger for sending money.

It’s a programmable system where people can build financial apps, social networks, games and even entire companies…

All without asking permission from a central authority.

And the currency that powers it all is ETH.

Nearly three-quarters of all decentralized trades are settled in ETH.

The most trusted stablecoins are backed by ETH reserves.

And staking ETH, which involves locking it up to help secure the network, now yields regular returns that resemble a national bond market.

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s Layer-2 chains are onboarding users at a rate that would make any fintech company jealous.

Coinbase’s own L2, Base, has crossed a million daily users. Arbitrum and Optimism are close behind.

And each one increases the velocity and depth of economic activity flowing through Ethereum’s ecosystem.

In other words, ETH doesn’t behave like a stock.

It behaves like a currency, with a yield curve, a burn mechanism, a programmable monetary supply and a growing GDP.

No wonder Fidelity is treating it like a sovereign asset.

And right now, it’s one that’s growing faster than nearly any country on Earth.

Regards,

Ian King
Chief Strategist, Banyan Hill Publishing and Grey Swan Investment Fraternity

P.S. from Andrew: We love bitcoin as a long-term means of saving in the digital age. And we like Ethereum as the leading protocol trade.

Meanwhile, the crypto price cycle suggests that Ethereum and other top altcoins are ready to run higher.

This is a window of opportunity where you could buy altcoins, enjoy a massive rally, then convert those profits into bitcoin (or cash/gold) during a crypto winter.

If a new crypto boom is underway and you’re looking for the best places to invest, Ian has just released new research on the top opportunities.

Ian notes that Trump’s new digital asset mandate could change everything starting July 22… and kick off a $6 trillion crypto boom. It’s worth checking out if you’re looking for a space that could take off over the summer as the stock market starts to trade more violently sideways.

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com

“When I came up with Ethereum, my first first thought was, ‘OK, this thing is too good to be true.’ As it turned out, the core Ethereum idea was good – fundamentally, completely sound.”

– Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum

July 18, 2025 — Back in 2022, I put out a video where I argued Ethereum wasn’t just another cryptocurrency…

It was starting to look like a global financial system that could one day compete with the U.S. dollar

Fast forward to this past week, where Ethereum (ETH) has jumped 22%, blowing past $3,400 and outperforming nearly every other major asset class.

Turn Your Images On

Ethereum prices have broken higher in recent weeks as cryptocurrency adoption accelerates
Source: coinmarketcap.com

Some analysts have attributed this rally to renewed optimism around crypto ETFs or broader market momentum.

Others pointed to Ethereum’s surging activity across Layer‑2 networks, which act like express lanes built on top of Ethereum to make transactions faster and cheaper.

But I believe something else played a much bigger role in this week’s ETH rally.

And it came from Fidelity.

The 78-year-old financial giant, which manages over $14 trillion in assets, just published a report that backs up exactly what I said back in 2022.

According to Fidelity, Ethereum isn’t a tech investment.

It’s a sovereign digital economy.

Here’s what that means…

Continued Below…

A Protocol With GDP

According to this recently released report, Fidelity’s analysts are now tracking Ethereum the same way governments track nations.

They’re measuring its GDP.

Of course, they can’t do this by measuring tax receipts or industrial output.

Instead, they get to this number by measuring ETH’s daily on-chain activity.

Ethereum is currently processing over 3 million daily users across its expanding web of Layer-2 chains like Arbitrum, Base and Optimism.

Turn Your Images On

Ethereum’s transactions and total value continue to rise, signaling increasing value of Ethereum itself, which should translate to higher prices
Source: Fidelity

These networks have become critical infrastructure, supporting everything from gaming and trading to social apps and decentralized finance.

Every time someone swaps tokens, mints an NFT or runs a smart contract on these networks, they pay a fee in ETH.

These are called gas fees, and they function like transaction taxes.

The more demand there is for Ethereum’s blockspace, the more users pay in gas.

And right now, that demand is sky high.

In fact, Ethereum generates millions of dollars in gas fees every single day.

According to Fidelity, 47% of those fees come from financial applications, while 25% come from trading and 6% are generated from art and entertainment.

Turn Your Images On

Ethereum continues to demonstrate a wide variety of use cases.
Source: Fidelity

This is the sign of a growing, diversified digital economy.

Yet contrary to what you might think, as more activity flows into Ethereum’s economy, ETH becomes more valuable.

That’s because ETH is the price of admission to use the network.

You can’t transact on Ethereum without paying gas. And you can’t pay gas in dollars or stablecoins.

Only ETH.

Every transaction, every contract and every app requires ETH to function.

In that sense, ETH isn’t just a token. It’s the currency of a digital nation.

And like any currency, how it’s issued and how much of it exists matters.

That’s why Ethereum’s approach to managing ETH supply is one of the most important design decisions it’s ever made.

Back in 2021, Ethereum implemented a major change to how fees are handled. Instead of paying all gas fees to miners or validators, a portion of those fees is now burned.

That means they are removed from circulation permanently.

The more demand there is for Ethereum’s blockspace, the more ETH gets destroyed. And the more ETH gets destroyed, the more valuable the remaining supply becomes.

It’s just like a central bank tightening the money supply in response to inflation.

Only there’s no central banker.

It’s all hard-coded.

Here’s My Take

You might have heard the argument that Ethereum is “the world computer.”

It means that Ethereum can run software, just like your laptop or phone. But instead of a single device, it runs across thousands of computers around the world.

It’s a decentralized platform where anyone can deploy code that executes exactly as written, but without a company in the middle.

In practice, this means Ethereum isn’t just a ledger for sending money.

It’s a programmable system where people can build financial apps, social networks, games and even entire companies…

All without asking permission from a central authority.

And the currency that powers it all is ETH.

Nearly three-quarters of all decentralized trades are settled in ETH.

The most trusted stablecoins are backed by ETH reserves.

And staking ETH, which involves locking it up to help secure the network, now yields regular returns that resemble a national bond market.

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s Layer-2 chains are onboarding users at a rate that would make any fintech company jealous.

Coinbase’s own L2, Base, has crossed a million daily users. Arbitrum and Optimism are close behind.

And each one increases the velocity and depth of economic activity flowing through Ethereum’s ecosystem.

In other words, ETH doesn’t behave like a stock.

It behaves like a currency, with a yield curve, a burn mechanism, a programmable monetary supply and a growing GDP.

No wonder Fidelity is treating it like a sovereign asset.

And right now, it’s one that’s growing faster than nearly any country on Earth.

Regards,

Ian King
Chief Strategist, Banyan Hill Publishing and Grey Swan Investment Fraternity

P.S. from Andrew: We love bitcoin as a long-term means of saving in the digital age. And we like Ethereum as the leading protocol trade.

Meanwhile, the crypto price cycle suggests that Ethereum and other top altcoins are ready to run higher.

This is a window of opportunity where you could buy altcoins, enjoy a massive rally, then convert those profits into bitcoin (or cash/gold) during a crypto winter.

If a new crypto boom is underway and you’re looking for the best places to invest, Ian has just released new research on the top opportunities.

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com

Mining stocks amplify everything. First Majestic went from losing money to 45% margins without building anything new. They just held the line on costs while silver did the heavy lifting.

That cuts both ways. If silver drops hard, margins compress just as fast. Same leverage, opposite direction.

The miners with the lowest costs and cleanest balance sheets will hold up best in a pullback and capture the most upside if the deficit keeps grinding.

Economists at Goldman Sachs said this morning they expect core inflation to finish the year around 2% even while GDP rises at a “surprisingly strong” 2.5% clip.

In our view, their inflation forecast is optimistic. Their GDP call? Modest.

The last time we pumped this much liquidity into the system — 2020 through 2022—the result was a manic asset bubble, runaway inflation, and an epic hangover at the Fed.

Goldman’s optimism has triggered a fresh round of bullish bets: cyclical stocks are rallying, “dispersion” in the S&P 500 is spiking, and the Fed is expected to cut interest rates twice before Jerome Powell gets kicked out of Washington at the end of his term on May 15.

Anecdotally, we’re hearing stories of warehouses full of GPUs sitting unused for lack of energy to power them. It’s a natural feature of the heavy capital investment in new machines. The grid has to catch up!

While Trump’s great reset rolls on in 2026, keep an eye on modular nuclear reactors and increased demand for uranium, natural gas and related resources.

These PM producers are literally printing the most ‘hard money’ that they ever have at these metals prices and record margins here at the midway point in Q4.

If there ever was a time for this sector to get overheated and frothy, this would be it… only that isn’t what we’ve seen playing out.

PM producers are still insanely profitable at even at current metals prices and should be far more valuable based on their margins, revenue generating potential, and their resources still in the ground.