The ETH FUD is quite laughable because people are staring at a programmed stability(surpression) through centralization right in the eye and refusing it like they didn't know it was the design from onset.
I'm certainly not an ETH bull but it's a dominant force within the digital assets industry and that cannot be ignored. It's not surprising that centralized systems will always destroy themselves at some point, because serving concentrated interests can only last so long.
The weird thing about this, which is essentially the key problem of such systems is that no matter how small a centralized system is in terms of the governance body, there's always a much smaller circle within looking to stir things in a different direction and you don't really get to know until shits hit the fan as it has now with all these speculations of a second foundation.
Maybe DeFi developments have peaked and people can't just seem to figure out what else to build to please the VCs that run this shit show, so they result in essentially looking to break fundamental things just so they can feel like they are doing something.
In a way, it makes sense cause when you change fundamentals, you open up new possibilities, good or bad, the house will always find a way to come out in profit.
Again, I will say that the ecosystem is too focused on numbers going up in the short term that they miss out on grabbing alternative opportunities like a chance at creating a vibrant and autonomously sustained economic system that's truly decentralized — Ethereum is due for a fork, one truly decentralized.
For the last 1-2 years, I've personally been so bored out with EVM-chain developments, the countless rollups, the zero-knowledge proofs, the abstractions, and lots of reporting on these topics without any of it creating notable steam. It all presents itself as a business of raising funds for project leads and VCs getting to dump project tokens on the community.
I imagine that this is how most of the ecosystem feels now too, but this is what happens when there's a surge in developments, things get too much and you can't really follow up.
And now that everyone is beginning to realize what the cost of L2s really is, ETH bulls are now looking for ways to circle back all that sucked away value into ETH because they desperately need a pump because It's alt season.
It kinda sounds like Ethereum is looking to do what Trump is doing right now with the US economy, how convenient that POTUS is an ETH bull judging by what its affiliated crypto company is buying up in millions of dollars in the past couple of days(weeks?).
The pretence of decentralization
Ethereum is centralized, it always has been. If you want specifics, here's a few names that control Ethereum:
Lido, Coinbase, Binance, Ethereum Foundation and ConsenSys. That's 5 names with tight affiliation with each other. Justin Sun has been trying to get into that circle, but it doesn't seem like they want him there.
The first three names directly control the network as they control the most staked ETH, while the last two control Ethereum's core development.
But collectively, they direct liquidity and funds flow, essentially controlling the entire EVM market. What's even more interesting is that the more you look at these brands, the more you see that they are just different domain names of a much greater single strategic investment network.
For instance, LIDO’s early investors included ParaFi when it raised $2 million in “strategic funding” and this is a firm with Co-investment tires with Coinbase Ventures. 1 year later, $73 million is raised in another funding round with Coinbase Ventures amongst the funders in this “undisclosed round.”
Additionally, ParaFi has ConsenSys listed as its “top investment” according to data from Cryptorank.
So if ParaFi and Coinbase Ventures are strategic partners and they've collectively funded Lido, which controls approximately 30% of Staked ETH, and at the same time, ParaFi backs ConsenSys, which is a critical part of Ethereum's development, popular for owning Metamask, what does all of this tell us about the supposed “decentralization” of Ethereum?
From just this, three of the listed brands controlling Ethereum appears to have a working strategic relationship. I do not even wish to even talk about the Ethereum Foundation right but Binance, now that's one I'm willing to explore.
Binance, via Binance Labs, now called YZi labs, holds close strategic relationship with Animoca Brands — a tier 2 venture that also happens to be under ParaFi’s top investment. YZi is also a Strategic partner of Coinbase Ventures, I mean, none of these things should be surprising and maybe people don't understand what “Strategic” means but it means that everything carried out should be mutually beneficial.
So whatever direction the market is being stirred, these firms listed are positioned to benefit as they essentially call the shots and literally control the liquidity. And because they collective have what to gain and lose, they have to do what's best to maintain stability(surpression) in ETH and make L2s remain shiny and attractive to the industry because that's where the money is.
By pulling liquidity away from Ethereum, ETH will grow slowly, especially with their network of market makers willing to get their hands dirty by ensuring the price is surpressed when need be, just as it is happening recently through Wintermute, enabled by Binance.
ETH bulls love to call Solana a Casino but Ethereum is no different. The powers directing liquidity is enabling the launch of overvalued L2s, sucking up liquidity and mining billions in fees with very little of that passing through the Ethereum network because you know, there are centralized exchanges in the club, blocking the one route that would have made L2s development reflect on ETH price actions.