Ethereum Is Being Rebuilt While Institutions Race to Accumulate It

Ethereum is entering one of the most important periods in its history. While developers prepare the network for its biggest architectural overhaul since The Merge, institutional investors are quietly accumulating ETH at a pace rarely seen before.

Together, those two trends suggest Ethereum is evolving on two fronts at once: its technology is being rebuilt for the next decade while large investors are increasingly treating ETH as a strategic financial asset.

This week, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, chaired by Tom Lee, disclosed it had purchased another 42,197 ETH, bringing its treasury to approximately 5.74 million ETH, or roughly 4.8% of Ethereum's circulating supply. At current market prices, the company's holdings exceed $10 billion, putting it within reach of its goal of controlling 5% of all ETH in circulation.

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At almost the same time, Vitalik Buterin unveiled an updated roadmap for Ethereum that he described as the network's biggest redesign since its transition to Proof-of-Stake. The proposal, known as Lean Ethereum, would reshape nearly every major part of the protocol over the next three to four years while preparing the network for an era defined by privacy, scalability and quantum-resistant cryptography.

Ethereum's Biggest Upgrade Since The Merge

Speaking after a gathering of Ethereum researchers in Berlin, Buterin said Ethereum is entering what he considers its third major chapter. Rather than introducing another incremental upgrade, the roadmap proposes replacing "almost every major piece of the protocol" over time without forcing developers to migrate existing applications.

Among the most significant proposals is the introduction of recursive STARK proofs, allowing Ethereum to verify the network through compact cryptographic proofs rather than requiring every node to execute every transaction. The roadmap also explores faster consensus, multidimensional gas pricing and, eventually, replacing today's Ethereum Virtual Machine with a more efficient RISC-V architecture.

Privacy has also moved to the center of Ethereum's development priorities. Instead of treating confidentiality as an optional feature, Buterin described privacy as a "first-class goal," with encrypted mempools, improved state architecture and quantum-resistant cryptography becoming core parts of Ethereum's future.

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The roadmap even envisions a network capable of storing approximately 100 terabytes of scalable blockchain state by the end of the decade while dramatically reducing fees for many common applications.

Institutions Continue Betting on ETH

While Ethereum's developers focus on rebuilding the protocol, institutions are increasingly treating ETH as a long-term treasury asset.

Bitmine's latest purchase continues an aggressive accumulation strategy that has pushed the company to approximately 5.74 million ETH, or roughly 4.8% of the network's circulating supply. Unlike many corporate treasury strategies that simply hold digital assets, Bitmine is also putting those holdings to work.

Around 4.9 million ETH—roughly 85% of its treasury—is currently staked through the company's institutional platform, MAVAN.

That strategy is already generating meaningful cash flow. Based on current staking yields of approximately 2.68%, Bitmine estimates annual staking revenue of around $235 million, with that figure rising to roughly $277 million if its entire ETH treasury is eventually deployed.

For Chairman Tom Lee, the strategy is about more than staking rewards. He has repeatedly argued that Ethereum could become one of the biggest beneficiaries of clearer U.S. digital asset regulation, particularly if the proposed CLARITY Act advances.

Combined with growing institutional demand for stablecoins and tokenized assets, Lee believes Ethereum is entering what he calls a new "crypto spring," with Bitmine still targeting the milestone of controlling 5% of the network's circulating supply before the end of 2026.

Ethereum's Next Chapter Is Taking Shape

Viewed separately, these developments look like two unrelated stories. One is about Vitalik Buterin redesigning Ethereum's core architecture for the next decade. The other is about Bitmine quietly accumulating nearly 5% of Ethereum's circulating supply while generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually through staking.

Together, however, they point to a network evolving on two fronts at once: its technology is being rebuilt while institutions are steadily increasing their exposure to ETH.

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That shift extends beyond private markets. In its new policy guide, the Ethereum Foundation argues that Ethereum should serve as neutral digital infrastructure, highlighting government initiatives including Bhutan's decentralized identity system, Buenos Aires' digital identity project, and Ethereum-based land registry pilots in India.

The Foundation also notes that Ethereum secures approximately $159 billion in stablecoins and $15.2 billion in tokenized real-world assets, reinforcing its position as one of the world's largest onchain financial networks.

Whether those initiatives ultimately drive broader government adoption remains to be seen. What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that Ethereum is no longer positioning itself simply as the blockchain behind DeFi—it is making a case to become the infrastructure layer for digital finance, identity and public services.