On May 21, Bankless co-founder David Hoffman announced on X that he had completely sold off all his Ethereum (ETH) spot holdings. The move stirred significant discussion, but Hoffman did not immediately disclose where the funds would go. On June 3, he finally revealed the detailed allocation of the proceeds from the ETH sale, while also fully explaining the reasoning behind the decision.
According to Hoffman, immediately after selling ETH, he took about 50% of the funds and split them across four tokens: VVV, NEAR, ZEC, and HYPE. The remaining 50% was kept as cash and deployed using a dollar-cost averaging (DCA) strategy solely to purchase LIT tokens, aiming to smooth out entry costs. This orderly approach reflected a disciplined rebalancing act. As of his latest update, the entire cash portion had been fully used to buy LIT, completing the rotation from ETH into those five assets.
Why He Sold: The "ETH as Money" Narrative Has Run Its Course
In a detailed post on the same day he announced the sale, Hoffman laid out his logic for exiting ETH. He emphasized that the decision was not impulsive but rather the result of a deep reconsideration of ETH’s pricing model. He wrote: "The grand narrative of 'ETH is money' has not failed; it has been fully priced in and has played out to its natural conclusion — the Ethereum network has received a valuation commensurate with its current achievements, but the ETH asset itself is unlikely to be repriced by the market, whether upward or downward."
This view means that, in Hoffman’s assessment, ETH as an asset has completed its repricing journey, and future network developments will have only minimal influence on its token price. Despite this, he remains extremely bullish on the Ethereum network itself, stating: "I am still extremely bullish on the Ethereum network and believe the ecosystem will be unprecedentedly prosperous, but only a tiny fraction of that success will continue to be reflected in ETH’s price." This signals a clear decoupling, in his mind, between network value and token value.
From heavy ETH concentration to a diversified portfolio across VVV, NEAR, ZEC, HYPE, and LIT, Hoffman’s pivot reflects a broader mindset shift among some early Ethereum evangelists. While he maintains faith in the network’s technological potential, he no longer views the ETH token as the primary vehicle for capturing that value. The entire portfolio rotation was completed by early June, marking a definitive departure from a one-asset conviction to a more broadly allocated crypto strategy.