The long-term path of Ethereum is once again at the center of discussion after Arthur Hayes presented a broad forecast about the asset’s future in the institutional environment, its price potential, and competitive position.
His comments came as Ethereum traded around $3,200. Over the past week, the price fluctuated in the range of $3,060 to $3,440. At the same time, major players, including BitMine by Tom Lee, began increasing their positions in Ethereum at an unprecedented pace.
Ethereum becomes the institutional standard
Hayes believes that the market still underestimates how deeply traditional financial institutions are going to integrate Ethereum. According to him, after many years of failed attempts to create working private blockchains, banks have finally recognized the need for a public settlement layer.
He noted that these organizations understood a simple thing. A private blockchain does not provide real security and does not ensure real usage. For this, a public blockchain is needed.
Hayes links this shift to the boom in stablecoins, which has effectively forced banks to accept the value of on-chain settlements.
According to him, Ethereum is now the only platform that combines the security, liquidity, and depth of developer ecosystem needed by institutional players.
Hayes is confident that such a transition will create a strong impetus for Ethereum price recovery in the next cycle. This trend is supported by aggressive accumulation of treasury reserves by companies like BitMine.
BitMine this week bought 33,504 ETH worth about $112 million. In early December, the company acquired another 138,452 ETH for approximately $435 million. As a result, its total holdings reached about 3.86 million ETH. Such large-scale purchases reinforce the view that institutional players are already preparing for the next major Ethereum cycle.
Ethereum treasuries hold nearly 5% of ETH supply. Source: CoinGecko
Privacy remains Ethereum’s main weakness, but L2 will solve this problem
Hayes admits that Ethereum does not yet provide the level of privacy needed by major institutional players. He calls this the most serious missing part of the ecosystem, although he notes that Vitalik Buterin’s roadmap is actively moving in this direction.
Despite this gap, Hayes is confident that Ethereum adoption by institutions will not be delayed. In his opinion, companies will deploy their own private L2 networks, while settlements will continue to be conducted on Ethereum.
He believes that Ethereum at the L1 level remains the base security layer. This does not change even if all activity moves to L2 solutions like Arbitrum or Optimism.
Hayes added that over time, it may be necessary to discuss the distribution of fees between L2 networks and the main Ethereum-L1 layer. But he emphasized that this issue does not affect reality. Institutional players will still rely on Ethereum as the security foundation.
This position coincides with what is currently happening in the ecosystem. Exchange balances have dropped to multi-year lows, and large holders have accumulated more than 900,000 ETH in recent weeks, according to Santiment.
Institutional architecture continues to form around the base layer of Ethereum, even despite the decline in fees caused by the migration of activity to L2.
A narrow circle of winners: Ethereum first, Solana second
Hayes believes that the future of public blockchains will ultimately come down to a very small number of winners. In his view, Ethereum occupies the obvious first place in the long term, while Solana remains in a confident, though distant, second position.
He explains the growth of Solana from $7 to $300 by the active memecoin frenzy in 2023 and 2024. However, he notes that Solana needs a new idea if it wants to overtake Ethereum again.
See also: SEC head Paul Atkins prepares rapid reforms for the crypto market at the start of 2026
Hayes is sure that Solana will retain its place in the market, but it will not be able to occupy the same institutional niche that Ethereum is gradually securing for itself. He also does not expect Solana to show comparable long-term price stability.
Almost all other L1s, Hayes considers structurally weak. He criticized networks with high FDV like Monad, calling them bloated projects that risk collapsing after the initial pump.
50 ETH to become a millionaire by the next election
Hayes gave the most direct numerical forecast when asked how much ETH is needed to reach a million-dollar capital in the next cycle.
He stated that the price of Ethereum could rise to $20,000. In this scenario, a portfolio of 50 ETH would already be worth seven figures.
The founder of BitMex expects this goal to become real by the next US presidential election. His forecast matches the current market situation. ETH reserves on exchanges are shrinking, institutional players continue to accumulate the asset, and companies like BitMine are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in ETH.
See also: Tether bets on the health and robotics market, moving away from crypto
If Ethereum still does not reach the expected levels, according to Hayes, the reason will be the destruction of the key market narrative.
He added that if stablecoin usage slows or institutional investors move away from on-chain activity, bitcoin may outperform Ethereum for a long time.
However, Hayes is confident that the current market structure strengthens the long-term dominance of Ethereum, especially as banks prepare to implement Web3 strategies on public infrastructure.
