Yet growing institutional interest has not clearly translated into ETH market performance, a disconnect that has frustrated many investors. Raman attributes this gap largely to timing.
“Sales cycles for institutions are particularly long,” he explains. “The piping is in place. We just haven’t seen all the assets come online yet.”
He said that in his view, Ethereum is currently in a transition phase where the infrastructure has largely been built, but the scale of adoption has not yet been fully reflected in the asset itself. As more tokenized assets migrate onto the chain, he believes the market will eventually re-evaluate ETH’s role as a network-securing asset.
“When you look back at the headlines, you will see that the global financial system’s internet moment happened on Ethereum,” he said.
Raman also pushed back against criticism of the Ethereum Foundation, which has come under scrutiny due to changes in leadership and its evolving role in the ecosystem. He says the foundation’s willingness to step back is a characteristic, not a flaw.
“The substrate of the financial system cannot be controlled by one party,” he said. “The network is universal. All the elements are there now. Let’s pass them on.”
Rather than acting as a central coordinator, Raman believes the foundation should focus on maintaining Ethereum’s core values – security, censorship resistance, privacy and open standards – while continuing its work on long-term priorities such as zero-knowledge technology and quantum resistance.
