While most market watchers fixated on ETH price swings, Ethereum's underlying role was quietly rewriting itself. In a recent deep dive, Milana Valmont, co-founder of Valmont Group, argues that the biggest shift for Ethereum happened while the crypto crowd was busy calling it dead — it moved from speculation toward infrastructure.
Why Private Chains Failed and Ethereum Won
Institutions first bet on private and permissioned blockchains, Valmont notes, comparing it to the era when enterprises built intranets before the public internet took over. The outcome was identical every time: liquidity fragmented, standards diverged, network effects never materialized. Public blockchains solved those issues — but institutions needed more than raw speed. They needed security, neutrality, and a battle-tested track record with real money under real stress. According to Valmont, Ethereum is the only programmable blockchain that has proved all three across a full market cycle.
ETF Approvals Removed the Biggest Barrier
The approval of Ethereum ETFs, combined with the resolution of proof-of-stake investigations, cleared a major hurdle for institutional capital. Valmont's take: "Capital does not move until uncertainty is reduced to an acceptable level." Once that cleared, tokenization on public blockchains jumped from experimental to competitive. Stablecoins proved the model. Tokenized treasuries confirmed it. Now fund managers are connecting traditional asset management with blockchain-based settlement.
Ethereum currently holds roughly 68% of all DeFi total value locked. Just yesterday, BlackRock listed its $2.2 billion BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund on Uniswap and bought UNI tokens — marking the world's largest asset manager stepping directly into DeFi infrastructure built on Ethereum.
Ethereum as 'Financial Middleware'
Valmont describes Ethereum not as a standalone asset but as "financial middleware" — a neutral base layer where different institutions, protocols, and products can operate without a single entity running the system. Infrastructure shifts, she notes, "rarely announce themselves loudly. They tend to happen quietly and then all at once."