So, let me get this straight. It took Ethereum a decade of compounding progress and relentless execution to reach: - $85B in DeFi TVL, the largest decentralized financial base in existence. - $165B in stablecoins circulating across its ecosystem. - $13B in tokenized RWAs and growing. - $73B in NFT trading volume across 23M buyers. - $27B held in ETFs and $24B in corporate treasuries. - 8+ execution clients, 12,500+ nodes, ~200 L2s, and 15,000 active developers. - Universal wallet support and Bitcoin-level brand recognition. - A $1B Ethereum Foundation treasury and institutional adoption across the world’s largest firms. And yet, some people panic over a new startup that just raised $500M on a $5B paper valuation, incubated by a VC firm, hyped for a niche payments use case, with no credible product in market, buying their way into a theoretical playbook. Let’s dramatize the reality: People severely underestimate the switching costs and barriers to entry in building a general-purpose L1, earning developer trust, attracting real users, onboarding apps, integrating with wallets, getting listed on exchanges, performing updates, supporting the chain, sustaining research & development, and maintaining credibly neutral decentralization. Momentum, credibility, scalability, interoperability, privacy, trust, uptime track record, and network gravity are the hardest things to buy or replicate.