From Digital Oil to a Digital Nation—Narratives for Ethereum in 2021

The “Ethereum is a payment network” narrative suggests the lowest network value, with a market capitalization below $1T if there is fee compression over time.

-Rate of adoption

-Price-to-earnings (or similar metrics) multiples the market will bear

The “ETH is a commodity similar to oil” and “Ethereum is a digital country” narratives suggest the highest market capitalizations, both showing paths to over $20T.

In many ways, Ethereum is similar to a country. It has citizens (wallets and users), a government (Ethereum Foundation), a currency (ETH), corporations (DAOs and Dapps), a financial market (DeFi), and relationships with other digital countries (bridges between different chains).

The world’s total gold total above-ground supply is worth ~$11T today³. Digital stores of value lower friction, provide better access and offer programmability, which could increase the total market size compared to gold.

While an estimated 12% of Americans hold gold, 25% of millennials with more than $50,000 in savings already own some form of crypto and another 42% are interested in purchasing crypto.

-Market share of the overall crypto market