Ethereum's dramatic rise the past week has stemmed from a growing embrace of digital assets' usefulness as more than stores of value and increased institutional and retail interest adoption of blockchain and stablecoin payments, research analysts at Bernstein wrote in a note Wednesday. 

The analysts noted the growing adoption of stablecoins for cross-border payments, the potential of brokerages such as Robinhood to offer tokenized equities on their own blockchains—constructed on Ethereum—and a changing perception among investors about the token amid crypto markets' recent spike.

"As the narrative moves in favor of institutional adoption of blockchain and stablecoin payments, beyond simply store of value, it may be hard to justify ETH as a relative underperformer," the note authored by Gautam Chhugani, Mahika Sapra, and Sanskar Chindalia read. 

Ethereum was recently trading just below $2,600, a 42% gain over the past seven days that has far outpaced Bitcoin and other major altcoins—part of a wider crypto markets' surge. Bitcoin is up about 6% over the same period, while Solana has jumped 21%. Ethereum started spiking last following Thursday's flawless Pectra upgrade that is meant to help address criticisms about the blockchain's speed and efficiency.



The second largest crypto by market capitalization had been hovering between $1,500 and $1,700 for most of 2025. A more crypto friendly U.S. political environment has led to widening interest in digital assets, including stablecoins, with Federal lawmakers now debating a bill that would regulate them.

Payments services provider Stripe recently debuted stablecoin-based accounts for business customers and completed its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge in February, while social media platform Meta has restarted its own stablecoin venture, Bernstein analysts noted. 

"Stablecoins are bringing back the focus on underlying blockchain networks becomin platform proxies to gain exposure to the growth trend," the note read, adding that Ethereum holds a dominant 51% share of minted stablecoin supply.

Stablecoins are digital tokens that are pegged to non-volatile assets—usually dollars—that traders can use to make crypto transactions without using traditional banking rails. 

The report highlighted Robinhood's $179 million purchase of crypto exchange WonderFi, which operates its own Layer-2 network on Ethereum. 

"Brokers such as Robinhood could potentially offer tokenized equities on their own blockchain, built on layer 2 Ethereum. Layer 2 chains use ETH for gas fees as underlying currency, thus helping drive distribution and demand for ETH," the Bernstein note said. 

"Layer 2 chains such as Base also pay gas fees in ETH to the underlying Ethereum layer 1 network, as they use it for security and settlement. This might become the template for asset managers and institutional users launching their own layer 2 chain on Ethereum."

Bernstein noted that ETH and non-Bitcoin assets' rally would help crypto exchanges and broker-dealers, "as a broader crypto market rally reinvigorates retail traders, thus driving strong trading volumes."

"After the tariff impacted April, we expect May to be a stronger month for retail crypto trading volumes. Both COIN and HOOD should be beneficiaries," the analysts wrote.

Edited by James Rubin

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