Recently, market sentiment has dropped to freezing point. The long-short controversy surrounding ETH is a "cutting off" that has significance as a bellwether: Bankless co-founder David Hoffman publicly disclosed that he has sold all of his ETH.
On the other hand, there are institutions on the market that are counter-cyclical by increasing their positions. Tom Lee's BitMine has been continuously buying ETH recently, elevating ETH to a core strategic focus for the company.
One side sees long-term advocates selling all their ETH, while the other side sees publicly traded companies and institutional funds continuing to increase their ETH positions. Is ETH really losing its value-capturing capability, or is it welcoming a new round of institutional re-evaluation? Biteye has helped summarize the long and short viewpoints👇
🌟Bullish
The bulls do not deny that ETH's short-term performance is weak and acknowledge that the market is reassessing ETH's value-capturing issues.
However, they believe that the core logic of ETH has not been broken.
Whether it's stablecoins, RWA, DeFi, L2, or institutional tokenization and Agentic AI, many new financial activities still require a secure, neutral, and composable underlying network. And Ethereum remains the most important candidate.
Therefore, the bullish bet is not on a short-term fee rebound but on the belief that ETH will continue to expand as on-chain finance grows, being re-integrated into institutional and long-term funding pricing frameworks.
1️⃣Tom Lee@fundstrat｜BitMine CEO｜XHunt Rank: 202
Core viewpoint: The short-term drop is noise; by 2026, ETH will strengthen due to structural drivers of tokenization + Agentic AI. He maintains a target of $7000-15000 by the end of 2025 and states, "ETH thesis not broken".
More importantly, Tom Lee is not just calling for a buy but is continuously purchasing ETH through BitMine.
On June 2nd, BitMine purchased approximately 26,497 ETH, worth about $52 million; previously, in the last week of May, BitMine had accumulated 111,942 ETH, worth about $237 million, marking one of the largest single-week purchases since 2026.
BitMine aims to hold 5% of the circulating supply of ETH and is nearing this target.
2️⃣Raoul Pal @RaoulGMI｜Real Vision CEO｜XHunt Rank: 45
Core viewpoint: ETH is one of the underlying operating systems of the on-chain economy. Raoul Pal's logic is not about short-term prices but rather the value of the network: if Ethereum were shut down today, a vast array of economic activities including Layer2, DeFi, NFT, and RWA would suffer tremendous impacts, hence ETH's current valuation may still be underestimated.
3️⃣Ryan Sean Adams @RyanSAdams｜Bankless co-founder｜XHunt Rank: 115
Core viewpoint: He does not agree with David Hoffman's decision to sell all his ETH. Ryan is more of a "cautiously bullish": he acknowledges that the window for ETH has narrowed but does not believe that ETH's long-term potential has ended.
After David Hoffman sold all his ETH, Ryan Sean Adams referred to it as the "end of an era" for Bankless, but he personally still disclosed holdings of ETH and continues to support Ethereum as a narrative for institutional assets and the foundational assets of the on-chain economy.
4️⃣Joseph Lubin@ethereumJoseph｜Ethereum co-founder/SharpLink CEO｜XHunt Rank: 56
Core viewpoint: ETH is not just a crypto asset; it is an important foundational asset for future institutional on-chain finance.
Joseph Lubin has continuously shared and supplemented an article by SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom at the end of May, clearly expressing his long-term judgment on Ethereum.
In his view, stablecoins, RWA, DeFi, smart contract vaults, and Agentic AI financial systems are jointly driving the reconstruction of global financial infrastructure. And Ethereum is one of the most important underlying networks for these assets and applications.
On May 29th, Lubin stated: Consensys's institutional team is bringing Ethereum into the global major financial market infrastructure and large financial institutions, emphasizing that: "TradFi keeps choosing Ethereum."
SharpLink's Q1 2026 financial report shows that as of May 4, 2026, SharpLink held 872,984 ETH.
5️⃣William Mougayar @wmougayar ｜Author of The Business Blockchain｜XHunt Rank: 3559
Core viewpoint: ETH is severely undervalued.
Whether in stablecoins, DeFi TVL, tokenized assets, settlement volumes, or transaction volumes, Ethereum ranks first across all key indicators, holding a market share of 21%-64%, yet ETH's market cap only accounts for about 10% of the total crypto market, which is completely unreasonable.
"Ethereum is infrastructure, just like the internet; value naturally accumulates at the base level rather than solely looking at income or fees at the app level."
6️⃣Hayden Adams @haydenzadams｜Uniswap founder｜XHunt Rank: 25
Core viewpoint: After David sold ETH, one should instead acknowledge that "ETH is money" is a valid argument, only the way it holds true may differ from many people's imaginations.
Hayden believes that in the future, all assets will be tokenized, and people will hold the assets they value most rather than only viewing one kind of asset as the sole unit of account.
In such an environment, what truly matters is not who becomes the only money, but who can provide a low-cost, high-efficiency, 24/7 asset exchange system.
From this perspective, Uniswap on Ethereum itself is a decentralized currency system: it allows different assets to be exchanged at any time, letting various forms of "currency" compete in the same open market.
7️⃣Jediwolf@Jediwolf｜Member of The Doomed DAO｜XHunt Rank: 1650
Core viewpoint: David Hoffman's statement that "Ethereum is a Giver, not a Taker" is very accurate, but the conclusion might be just the opposite.
Jediwolf believes that the crypto market is too accustomed to understanding a chain through "extracting value": high fees, high cuts, value capture. But the most unique aspect of Ethereum is that it is not eager to take value from users, but instead provides tools, trust, and infrastructure for the ecosystem first.
Taking on-chain art as an example, Ethereum has almost provided a complete set of infrastructure for artists and collectors: issuance, verification, settlement, custody, identity, global liquidity, and composability. It may not immediately lead to ETH appreciating, but it allows more and more artists to price in ETH, and collectors to think in ETH, forming cultural assets around ETH.
🌟Bearish
In addition to the price, personnel changes within the Ethereum community since 2026 have also become an important background for market discussions about ETH.
From 2026 to now, many senior researchers, protocol heads, and management members of the Ethereum Foundation have left. Just in May, several core members announced their departure one after another.
Due to the high concentration of time, this wave of departures has been referred to by some community members and media as the "Spring 2026 Reshuffle."
In this context, some investors have begun to reassess ETH's long-term value capture capability, while others believe this is merely a necessary adjustment before Ethereum moves into a new stage.
1️⃣David Hoffman @TrustlessState｜Bankless co-founder｜XHunt Rank: 59
Core viewpoint: The narrative window of "ETH is Money" has basically closed. Ethereum, as a network, is still successful, able to provide secure block space and open infrastructure for L2, DeFi, stablecoins, RWA, and applications, but these successes may not fully flow back to the ETH token itself. This means Ethereum may continue to grow, but ETH may not be the biggest beneficiary asset.
So David sold all his ETH and reallocated his funds to other places in the market with better opportunities.
2️⃣Markus Thielen@markus10x｜Founder of 10x Research｜XHunt Rank: 60383
Core viewpoint: 10x Research published a high-conviction short ETH view on May 16, 2026. ETH is currently not only seeing a weak price but also a weakening of the fundamental narrative and institutional funding, summarized in three core points:
ETH lacks traditional cash flow.
The derivatives market shows more aggressive short positions.
Institutional funds are also withdrawing.
Markus Thielen later indicated that since this short view was published, ETH has dropped by about 10%, and their bearish thesis was actually formed as early as October 31, 2025.
3️⃣Goldman Sachs - Shifting from Spot Exposure to Defensive Allocation
Core viewpoint: Goldman Sachs has not publicly made strong bearish statements about ETH, but from changes in its 13F holdings in Q1 2026, it has clearly reduced its exposure to Ethereum spot ETFs.
The 13F documents show that Goldman significantly cut some of its crypto ETF holdings in Q1, especially being more cautious with the allocation to ETH-related ETFs.
4️⃣Harvard Management Company
Core viewpoint: Harvard has not publicly expressed bearish views on ETH, but it has shown its withdrawal through actual positions.
Harvard Management Company established a position in BlackRock's spot Ethereum ETF ETHA in Q4 2025, purchasing approximately 3.8709 million shares with a position value of about $86.82 million.
However, by Q1 2026, Harvard had sold off its entire ETHA position. This means this exposure to the Ethereum ETF was held for only one quarter.
5️⃣eric@econoar｜Author of EIP-1559｜XHunt Rank: 156
Core viewpoint: Do not blame David for liquidating his ETH, as ETH has indeed underperformed the entire crypto market for many consecutive years.
Eric states that he agrees with many of David's viewpoints, and he has significantly reduced his ETH holdings over the past 1-2 years. The other assets he has shifted into have clearly outperformed ETH.
However, he does not believe the underperformance of ETH is solely due to fundamental errors within Ethereum itself. On the contrary, he believes an easily overlooked reason is that the early surge in ETH was too intense, creating a large number of early millionaires in a short period, and this long-term selling pressure will take a long time to be fully absorbed by the market.
Thus, Eric's stance is not to completely deny Ethereum but to oppose ETH maximalism from a portfolio management perspective.
The market does not lie, and there is no need to go against it. If ETH heats up again, it can always be bought back.
6️⃣Ignas@DefiIgnas｜Co-founder of @PinkBrains_io｜XHunt Rank: 383
Core viewpoint: ETH has transformed from a consensus hold to a reverse bet.
Ignas believes the weakness of ETH over the past 2-3 years partly stems from changes in market style and partly from issues within Ethereum itself: L2 routes lead to weak value capture for L1, the L1 scaling moves slowly, user experience has not improved significantly over the long term, and the narratives around fees and revenue are also weakening.
He acknowledges that Ethereum still has long-term competitive advantages in decentralization, anti-censorship, and cypherpunk ideals, but the market is currently more concerned about revenue, transaction volume, and valuation multiples.
This is also the problem with ETH currently: Ethereum still dominates DeFi TVL, but the yields of TVL flow significantly to protocols, stablecoin issuers, and L2, and do not necessarily flow back to ETH.
At the same time, the once prevalent "ultrasound money" narrative has also weakened. Lower fees benefit users, but if transaction volumes do not increase in tandem, the logic of ETH burning and deflation will be very hard to re-establish.
Therefore, Ignas's viewpoint is that for ETH to regain market confidence, it cannot rely solely on long-term ideals but also needs to bring back users, transaction volumes, fees, and value capture.
🌟Conclusion
The most interesting aspect of this controversy is that ETH is no longer just a belief asset within the crypto circle.
In the past, the narrative around ETH revolved more around technological upgrades, ecological prosperity, and developer networks; as long as Ethereum continued to be used, the market assumed that ETH would benefit along with it.
But now, this default premise is being reassessed. The market will continue to ask: Where is the revenue? Where is the cash flow? Why should funds buy in instead of buying BTC? Why should institutions hold long-term instead of trading short-term? How much of the ecological growth will transmit to ETH?
This is also the most awkward and critical aspect of ETH currently. What ETH truly needs to prove next is not only that Ethereum will continue to exist, nor that the ecosystem will continue to thrive.
But when more assets, more users, and more institutions enter this network, can ETH truly transform from "being used as a foundational facility" to "being continuously bought and held as a core asset"?
This is the most central question behind this round of long-short controversy.
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