Ethereum Compared to ’90s Amazon as Wall Street Awaits Its Potential

Ethereum’s potential to disrupt and innovate remains undervalued by many on Wall Street, drawing comparisons to Amazon’s early days as an emerging online bookstore in the 1990s, according to insights from 21Shares, a leading crypto asset manager. While Amazon grew to dominate e-commerce and cloud computing, Ethereum is similarly positioned to transform decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenized assets, and other digital markets, research suggests.

The rollout of spot Ether ETFs in July marked a milestone for Ethereum, but inflows have been modest compared to Bitcoin ETFs. Ethereum ETFs saw only 9% of the inflows achieved by spot Bitcoin ETFs in their first 90 days, largely due to short marketing periods and lingering investor hesitation. Wall Street’s reticence reflects both Ethereum’s complexity and the need for a broader understanding of its applications, said Leena ElDeeb, Research Analyst at 21Shares.

Despite being worth a fraction of Amazon’s $2 trillion valuation, Ethereum’s ecosystem has a unique advantage: its developer base. Federico Brokate, head of 21Shares’ U.S. business, highlighted that Ethereum boasts over 200,000 active developers. In comparison, Amazon had just 7,600 employees at the end of the 1990s. This talent pool strengthens Ethereum’s core capabilities, particularly as it faces competition from other layer-1 blockchains such as Solana. Ethereum remains the primary platform for decentralized exchanges, stablecoins, and tokenized assets, with major firms like BlackRock and UBS leveraging its network for tokenized financial products.

Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solutions have brought costs down for users but have also temporarily lowered mainnet revenue, which some institutional investors may view as a concern. However, Brokate pointed to Amazon’s early financial struggles, noting that Ethereum’s revenue outlook could improve as fees from layer 2s stabilize and grow.

Meanwhile, crypto industry experts remain confident that institutional interest in Ethereum will strengthen over time. “Traditional investors need time to assess Ethereum’s unique potential,” explained Katalin Tischhauser, Head of Research at Sygnum Bank, who anticipates a “very different” picture over the next year. As more investors recognize Ethereum’s broad applications, Wall Street could see Ethereum ETFs gain momentum, reflecting a larger shift in digital asset adoption.

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