DeFi Dad posts William Mougayar’s new work on Ethereum’s fundamental mispricing. The report claims that the market has developed Ethereum as a commercial enterprise. Investors value ETFs based on fees and returns. Moogayal places this lens in a negative light, saying that Ethereum’s role as a public good is undervalued. He likens Ethereum to the base layer of the Internet, such as TCP/IP. These plans generated huge economic revenues without direct benefits. Ether works similarly. The network powers trillions of activities in stablecoins, payments, DeFi, and tokenized assets. According to the report, the value of ETH is only a fraction of this value. Currently, market capitalization numbers do not indicate the overall impact of the network. This gap is identified in the post and calls for a new evaluation framework.
New valuation model has trillions of dollars of intrinsic value
This report presents a three-part evaluation model. Quantify captured value, capitalized economic flows, and trust surpluses. The market capitalization of ETH, Layer 2 networks, and DeFi protocols has captured value. This group is currently worth about $0.6-0.9 trillion. The economic flows that depend on Ethereum are capitalized and are such that they include GDP-like activities. This includes the volume of stablecoin payments, DeFi transactions, and tokenized transactions.
These flows exceed 50 trillion each year. Using conservative multiples, the valuation is between 0.3 trillion and 3 trillion. Trust surplus consists of reduced fraud, resistance to censorship, and savings from intermediaries. These benefits add up to 0.15-0.6 trillion. The hybrid model essentially values Ethereum in the range of 2 trillion to 6 trillion. As of December 2025, ETH has a market value of nearly 400 billion. The report notes that this disconnect is largely underestimated.
Ethernet systems as the world’s trust in finance
According to the report, Ethereum has been called the global trust underlayer of digital finance. Networks secure value. Enforce the rules. It is a host of international applications and relies on banks, fintechs, businesses, and governments. This report compares the early Internet. TCP/IP was the powerhouse of world communications. It has expanded to trillions of dollars in economic impact. The same is true for Ethereum. Tokenization will grow.
Adoption of stable coins is increasing. Real-world assets move to the blockchain. Demand from institutional investors is increasing around the world. The model predicts a value of between 10 trillion and 20 trillion over the next three years (2035). According to McKinsey and the World Bank, the growth of digital infrastructure is historic. The report claims that Ethereum is also on the same curve. This post shows that ETH’s long-term utility is optimistic. The community believes this study is a wake-up call to the market’s reputation for base layers.
