This Crypto Cycle Skipped ETH

gm Bankless Nation,
It's no secret that ETH spent a lot of this cycle on the sidelines.

Today’s piece from David digs into why the cycle that skipped Ethereum may finally be ending, and why ETH still holds advantages no other smart contract chain has been able to replicate.

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Sponsor: Coinbase — Borrow against your BTC or ETH on Coinbase, powered by Morpho.

Dear Bankless Nation,

About two years ago, Ryan and I had a call with Chris Burniske, shortly after recording a podcast episode with him. 

Chris has always been something of a mentor to both myself and Ryan in crypto, as we all came into crypto in pursuit of trying to understand, categorize, define, and model this inherently unknown industry. 

He said something in that call that both RSA and I did not want to hear: “This cycle just might skip over ETH.”

Ultimately, that is what came to pass. Ignoring debates about cycle dynamics and timing, the last few years of onchain action have mostly ignored Ethereum, and ETH’s price has reflected this. 

I think this must be how Bitcoiners felt during 2021. BTC did well in the NFT mania – it got buy-in from institutions as a hedge against debasement and government fiscal mismanagement. But when it came to what retail enjoyed, and where the onchain activity was, Bitcoin was cast aside as a boomer coin. 

You couldn’t do anything on Bitcoin, and all the action was on Ethereum. Ethereum was the star of the show last cycle. 

This most recent era in crypto echoes this same pattern, except it’s Ethereum that's been ignored, and Solana that hosted all of the action. Bitcoin, notably, also had a big resurgence in cultural relevancy and adoption. 

And while there have been some much-needed fixes in Ethereum, overall sentiment has never truly re-entered a happy place – perhaps only reaching an absence of despair. The DATs gave ETH one big win this cycle, even if we are now dealing with the hangover. 

But, all of this to say… it seems that the cycle that skipped ETH… is over. 

Despite all its losses in market share and momentum… ETH is still the #1 smart contract chain, by a lot. Nothing has ever come close to changing that. And, unlike all other smart contract chains, only Ethereum has a genesis story that is comparable to Bitcoin's – the immaculate ICO, the messy beginnings, and the complete lack of corporatism of the Ethereum foundation. 

Ethereum has what no chain could ever replicate – and in a crowded ocean of high-performance smart contract chains… there will only ever be one Ethereum. 

And, to set things up for 2026, Larry Fink's economist article about Tokenization paves the way for Ethereum to have the same cultural resurgence that Bitcoin had, after the cycle that skipped Bitcoin was over. 

I'm still cautiously optimistic… and there are a lot of stars that could align for ETH in 2026. Let's see how it plays out. 

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📈 The Asset

• ETH supply decreased by 33k this week after buy and burns outpaced issuance 7x last week
• DTCC, which settles $3.7 quadrillion per year, was greenlit to tokenize stocks, treasuries, and beyond
• BitMine purchased another 138.5k ETH, worth $435M
• William Mougayar published “The Internet’s Blueprint for Ethereum: A Trillion-Dollar Public Goods Valuation Framework”

🏛️ The Protocol

• Ethereum raised its maximum blob limit to 15

📱 The Apps

• Allium launched its Orderflow Explorer
• Fileverse received a shoutout from Vitalik for its progress
• Gauntlet expanded its USD Alpha Vault to Ethereum
• Lighter just became the largest perps DEX by 7d volume
• Nouns DAO gave its core contracts ENS names via Enscribe
• Octant introduced StreamVote, a new continuous funding mechanism on Ethereum
• Stripe unveiled USD-settled stablecoin payments on Ethereum, Base, and Polygon
• Synthetix is launching its perps DEX on Dec. 17
• Zora opened livestreaming to everyone

🤫 The Privacy Stack

• Aztec raised nearly 20k ETH in its continuous clearing auction
• The Privacy Stewards of Ethereum introduced their Privacy Experience Report
• Veil integrated deposit screening via 0xbow

🐸 The Culture

• The EF hired Charles St. Louis, formerly of Maker and DELV, as an in-house DeFi specialist

💽 The Tech

• L2s account for ~90% of crypto lending revenues
• Celo transitioned into a ZK fault-proof rollup
• MegaETH is launching with a 512KB max contract size
• OKX migrated its L2 from Polygon’s infra to the OP Stack

The final Fed meeting of 2025 delivered a surprise rate cut, but the real story is how the market is reacting.

In this Weekly Rollup, Ryan and David unpack what the new policy shift means for crypto liquidity, why regulators across the SEC, CFTC, and OCC are suddenly embracing onchain markets, and how Tom Lee’s massive ETH accumulation is reshaping sentiment.

We also get into Ethereum’s growing momentum from ZK advancements and blob upgrades, the ZKsync Atlas rollout, Base’s bridge drama with Solana, and Farcaster’s pivot away from social. Plus, the rise of tokenization, new prediction market rails, and whether this week marks the first real cycle turn for Ethereum.

Tune into this week’s Rollup! 👇