The real value being built on Ethereum is outpacing the price of $ETH itself. Researcher and analyst Leon Waidmann shared Token Terminal data showing that Ethereum hit an interesting record with its fully diluted valuation (FDV) at approximately $210 billion and total value locked (TVL) at about $260 billion.

The total value of assets used by Ethereum protocols has surpassed the theoretical value of all $ETH that will ever be created. This is notable because TVL has almost always been below Ethereum’s FDV before, even in past bull runs.

According to Waidmann, it means that either the Ethereum ecosystem has grown too big for its current price, or $ETH just isn’t priced high enough yet.

At the same time, institutional interest in $ETH is growing once again. On July 8, around $70 million poured into Ethereum ETFs, which is the biggest daily inflow in about a month. This marks five straight days of net inflows totaling roughly $162 million.

When investors buy shares, the ETF issuer buys actual $ETH, pulling it into long‑term institutional custody and shrinking the supply available for trading. Sustained ETF inflows, therefore, create genuine spot demand.

Why Robinhood Chain Could Matter for $ETH

On July 1, Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain. It’s built on Arbitrum technology and is meant to handle DeFi and tokenized real‑world assets (RWAs) like stocks.

Ethereum Daily on X shared an interesting idea that the Robinhood development could end up being beneficial for $ETH in the long run.

Layer 2s handle their own transactions but settle back to the main Ethereum chain regularly. That way, they benefit from Ethereum’s security, consensus, final settlement, and validator network. Without that connection, Layer 2 wouldn’t be secure.

As such, if big players like Robinhood, banks, fintechs, and brokerages all build on Ethereum L2s, a growing share of financial value will end up depending on Ethereum. At that point, $ETH will become the collateral that secures trillions in financial infrastructure.

Additionally, the Ethereum Foundation says about $76 billion in $ETH is staked, and taking down Ethereum’s finality would cost tens of billions. Under current assumptions, an attacker would need roughly $50 billion to finalize fraudulent transactions, which again demonstrates Ethereum’s economic security model.

Related: Ethereum Outperforms Bitcoin as Bitmine Buys 40,000 $ETH