‘Unbounding of EF continues’ — Bitmine backs ETHSystem to advance Ethereum privacy 

Another Ethereum-focused non-profit, ETHSystems, has been formed to advance the network’s privacy push.

The latest organization is backed by the world’s largest ETH treasury firm, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Sharplink, and Joe Lubin (Ethereum’s co-founder).

Commenting on the debut, Bitmine chairman Tom Lee underscored the need for privacy for institutional adoption. He added, 

Institutions want confidential systems using Ethereum as the settlement layer. This launch strengthens ETH is the future of money.

According to the ETHSystems team, they will focus on building private and confidential systems for major Wall Street players leveraging Ethereum as a settlement layer. 

This would mark the third entity backed by Bitmine as the Ethereum Foundation (EF) scales down its stewardship role for the network. For his part, educator and analyst David Hoffman of Bankless viewed the move as another step to allow the EF to scale down. 

The unbundling of the EF continues…Privacy is such an important frontier, glad someone is taking ownership over it!

Before ETHSystems, two other non-profit organizations, Ethereum Institutional and ETHLabs, were unveiled with Bitmine as the lead financing partner. The trend has increased following revelations that EF could face a funding crisis and fail to advance major upgrades, including post-quantum transition. 

Although the new non-profits are made up of former EF executives and team members, Bitmine has now emerged as the core financing partner across the board. To some extent, this goes against the Ethereum ethos of decentralization. 

However, it remains to be seen whether other independent players will emerge as EF further cuts down its role in the ecosystem in the coming years. 

Will Ethereum flip Bitcoin amid stablecoin push?

Ethereum still commands a significant share of total value locked (TVL) across its DeFi ecosystem, with increasing interest from institutional players. And Tom Lee is betting on stablecoins, tokenization, and an AI agent boom as the key catalysts for the chain. 

Interestingly, Nick Tomaino, founder of VC firm 1Confirmation, also echoed Lee’s thesis. In fact, Tomaino projected that ETH would eventually flip BTC, citing growing stablecoin adoption. 

Reiterating his Ethereum [ETH] outperformance call made last year, he noted, 

BTC dominance then was ~60%, it’s now down to ~56%. Other coins were ~24%, now down to ~21%. Meanwhile, ETH dominance then was ~8%; now it’s up to ~9.6%, and stablecoins (which are mostly on Ethereum) are up from ~7% to 13%.

At the time of writing, the ETHBTC ratio, which tracks relative performance between the two assets, was up 17%. This meant that ETH outperformed BTC in the past three weeks on investor gains.

However, this is a limited period which cannot be used to conclusively signal a long-term flip of BTC by ETH.  

Final Summary

• ETHSystems has become the third non-profit to step up as the Ethereum Foundation scales down. 
• A venture firm exec believes that Ethereum’s increasing stablecoin dominance could help it flip BTC in market share.