Ethereum trading near $2,331

Ethereum is doing the weird thing it often does — the network looks enormous, but the token price still feels stuck. On May 10, ETH traded around $2,331, roughly flat on the day and still far below its 2025 peak. But the argument around it has changed. This is less about “crypto goes up” now, and more about whether Ethereum’s base layer can actually capture enough value from the economy built on top of it. ### Why are people calling ETH undervalued? Because the ecosystem is huge. Ethereum’s institutional data hub shows about $90.2 billion in staked ETH, about $39.4 billion in average Layer 2 TVL, about $45.5 billion in DeFi TVL on Ethereum, and stablecoin value around $181 billion across mainnet and L2s. In plain English — a lot of crypto’s useful stuff still sits on Ethereum rails, even if users do not touch mainnet directly. (coinmarketcap.com) ### So why hasn’t the price followed? Because usage moved, but fee capture changed. Ethereum deliberately pushed activity toward rollups and other Layer 2s to make transactions cheaper and the system more scalable. That worked for users. But it also cut the old-style mainnet fee machine that bulls used to point to. The market is basically asking whether Ethereum is becoming more important while ETH itself becomes less directly monetized. (institutions.ethereum.org) ### What changed after the scaling upgrades? The big shift came with blob-based scaling and the broader post-Dencun, post-Pectra design. Ethereum’s roadmap now leans hard into being a modular settlement and data layer for rollups. Pectra, which followed Dencun, added improvements for validators, wallets, and the execution-consensus stack. That makes Ethereum better at supporting a larger ecosystem — but it also makes the valuation story more indirect than it used to be. (blockworks.com) ### Why does staking matter so much here? Staking is one of the cleanest ways ETH captures value. If more ETH gets locked to secure the chain, less liquid supply is available to trade, and the asset starts to look more like productive infrastructure than idle collateral. Right now, the staked value is massive. But the catch is that staking alone does not settle the debate — investors still want to see durable network income, not just coins sitting still. (ethereum.org) ### Are institutions buying this story? Sort of — but not in a straight line. CoinShares’ latest weekly report showed digital asset products took in $117.8 million overall, while Ethereum products actually saw $81.6 million of outflows, breaking a three-week streak of stronger demand. So the institutional picture is not “everyone is rushing into ETH.” It is more cautious than that. (institutions.ethereum.org) ### What are bulls watching now? They are watching whether rollup growth starts producing meaningful revenue for Ethereum itself. That means blob demand, validator economics, staking participation, and whether the chain keeps enough pricing power as Layer 2s scale. If those metrics keep improving, the market can argue ETH is not just the token under the ecosystem — it is the scarce asset that secures and monetizes it. (researchblog.coinshares.com) ### And what’s the actual risk? The risk is that Ethereum wins the ecosystem war but loses the value-accrual war. If users stay on Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and other L2s while most economics remain at the app layer, ETH can look essential without looking cheap. That is the whole fight around $2,331. The network already looks dominant. The token still has to prove why that dominance belongs in its price. (blockworks.com) ### Bottom line Ethereum is no longer selling the simple story that high fees equal a higher token price. The new pitch is tougher, but more serious — ETH is the reserve asset behind a sprawling onchain economy. Around $2,331, the market is still deciding whether that new pitch is enough. (coinmarketcap.com) (institutions.ethereum.org)