my crypto investment thesis is rather simple: Ethereum is the only smart contract platform that takes the blockchain trilemma seriously, aiming for security, decentralization, and scalability while upholding the cypherpunk ethos of neutrality and self sovereignty. It was slacking on the scalability aspect for a while but that is now the primary focus without sacrificing security or decentralization. The current incremental steps have made transactions affordable now. The zk-rollup-ification of L1 in the roadmap will make it ultra scalable, too. Dumbchains are not interesting as they have no on chain economies, and vc corposlop smart chains are cynical extraction machines. Ethereum alone points to a brighter future that takes the masses some kind of power or agency back from the ever growing corpo fascist trend the world is moving to. When ETH does well, the entire industry does well, and vice versa. No other blockchain ecosystem has people willing to fight for it like Ethereum, evidenced by the multitudes of devs and projects who choose to work on it without needing to be lured in by VCs and fat cheques. These very qualities that make it appealing to cypherpunks also make it appealing to institutions as time after time, they prefer to work on open and neutral systems rather than closed/proprietary or biased ones. Sure we all have nitpicks about the EF, myself included, but to their credit, they have cultivated an ecosystem that people care about beyond just pumping bags. It has a soul in an often soulless industry. If ETH fails, then crypto has failed and the world will be a materially worse place. Call me naive or dumb, but I’d rather fight for something worthy of fighting for than succumb to a nihilistic stance focused solely on self-enrichment. In short, it is the only chain/ecosystem in the space that isn’t garbage.