ethereum shipped glamsterdam and chopped fees ~78–80%, then promptly slid to ~19th by protocol revenue. USDT is pulling in about $493m a month in revenue and briefly flipped ETH to #2 by market cap. ETH literally optimized away the economics that underpinned the “ultrasound money” story: lower fees and higher throughput make the chain more useful while compressing the burn that created the premium. the new narrative is “settlement layer for tokenized securities,” but settlement layers don’t usually command speculative multiples; they clear at utility pricing. blackrock and DTCC are building on ethereum precisely because the rails are cheap. that’s the design win. it’s also the token’s problem.