Ethereum is a network that was founded on July 30, 2015 and has been around for over 10 years. With the price of the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) above $2,000, some investors may think it is too late to enter this market.
The following chart shows how the price of ETH has progressed since its launch.
Gone are the days when each ETH could be purchased for less than $10.
However, digital asset management company CoinShares disagrees with the idea that it is too late. For the firm’s analysts, Ethereum is still an early investment opportunity.
This is expressed in an analysis published by the company on May 5, 2026. The company’s core argument is based on the fact that few investors are focused on the infrastructure that increasingly supports digital finance and is becoming a key element of the future global financial system.
Most investors focus on applications. Few people pay attention to infrastructure. But ultimately, every financial system is based on one question. It’s about who makes sure the money is there. In traditional finance, the answer lies in central banks, clearinghouses, and decades of regulation. In digital finance, Ethereum is becoming an increasingly important part of the answer. invisible to the user. Essential to the institution.
CoinShares, an investment and financial analysis company.
The CoinShares report explains that Ethereum acts as a layer on which smart contracts are executed, value transfers are completed, and financial instruments are settled. Unlike traditional systems, these operations occur “not between mutually trusting institutions, but between different individuals who are completely controlled by code that always runs the same way.”
The company emphasizes that “Ethereum is not just a database; it is a system specifically designed to make interference economically unreasonable.”
CoinShares particularly emphasizes the proof-of-stake consensus protocol used by Ethereum.
To participate in validating transactions on Ethereum, you need to lock up a large amount of ETH as collateral. This is a process called staking. Validators who process transactions honestly earn rewards. Validators who tamper with or attempt to manipulate the registry will permanently lose their warranty. The system is designed so that the cost of an attack always exceeds the potential benefit.
CoinShares, an investment and financial analysis company.
The company explains that the staking mechanism creates an investment dynamic in which validators not only assume the risk but also earn a portion of each transaction fee processed by the network. The more activity you have on Ethereum, the more profits you will getthe company points out.
To be precise, this activity has already shown significant scale, supporting CoinShares’ hypothesis.
There is currently $547 billion in value secured in the Ethereum ecosystem (including ETH, stakes, and tokens in circulation).
And Ethereum is very present in current trends in the financial industry such as tokenization. According to a report by CriptoNoticias, the network hosts 54% of the global market share of tokenized real world assets (RWA).
CoinShares detects that “the institutions building the next generation of financial infrastructure have made a decision. The use of Ethereum is expanding. Ethereum is no longer an experiment, but a solid foundation that guarantees a new generation of applications.”
According to our analysis, the opportunities lie in: “Own the payments infrastructure while it is being built, not after it becomes the norm.”.
Although the CoinShares report does not set a long-term price target for ETH, it does reveal a lot of growth potential. The company believes that the transition from legacy systems to programmable payments that use code to complete transactions instead of intermediaries has already begun at major financial institutions.
(Tag translation) Altcoin
