According to TechFlow on June 14, Etherealize founder Vivek Raman said a growing number of traditional financial institutions are deploying Ethereum as infrastructure in real production environments, rather than treating it only as an experimental technology platform. Addressing ETH’s relatively weak recent price performance, Raman described the current market as being in a “transition phase.”
The gap between institutional adoption and ETH pricing
Raman said Ethereum’s core infrastructure has largely been built, but the level of adoption has not yet been fully reflected in the market pricing of ETH itself. In his view, Ethereum is increasingly being used as a base layer for real financial activity, while ETH’s market valuation has not yet caught up with that adoption.
He said that as more stocks, bonds, funds and other real-world assets, or RWAs, are tokenized and moved on-chain, the market will ultimately reassess the importance of ETH. Raman framed ETH as both an asset that helps secure the network and an asset capable of carrying value within the Ethereum ecosystem. As more financial assets operate on-chain, he believes ETH’s function inside the network will be reviewed again by the market.
The Ethereum Foundation’s role in the ecosystem
Raman also responded to recent controversy and criticism surrounding the Ethereum Foundation. He argued that the foundation’s deliberate decision to “take a step back” is not a governance failure, but an important design principle within a decentralized system. He said the base infrastructure for the future financial system should not be led or controlled by any single organization.
According to Raman, the Ethereum Foundation’s more important responsibility is to preserve the network’s core values, including security, censorship resistance, privacy protection and open standards. He also said the foundation should continue to advance long-term technical directions such as zero-knowledge proofs, or ZK, and quantum-resistant computing. Raman concluded that as institutional adoption increases and the on-chain financial ecosystem matures, Ethereum’s role as global financial infrastructure will become clearer, while ETH’s value capture mechanism will receive a market revaluation.