Written by: ConsenSys
Organized & Compiled by: LenaXin, ChainCatcher
Every financial transaction contains an element of trust. Ethereum's digital trust enables the digitization of massive assets, capital, and financial transactions, thereby greatly enhancing the efficiency of the global financial system, benefiting everyone from institutions to enterprises to consumers.
On July 30th, Ethereum celebrated its tenth anniversary. On this occasion, ConsenSys released the "Industrialization of Trust" report, which provides a detailed overview of Ethereum's investment case and the emerging technology category of "Trustware". "Trustware" is an infrastructure that industrializes trust production, allowing trust to be encoded in the form of digital commodities.
ConsenSys' research and analysis show that Ethereum has become the dominant blockchain platform, supporting over 50% of non-Bitcoin digital assets, including 60% of stablecoins, 60% of decentralized finance capital, and 80% of tokenized "real-world assets" such as stocks, money market funds, and bonds.
Ethereum's Breakthrough: Digital Trust and Trustware
Trustware is an infrastructure that can upgrade the simulated concept of trust, such as notes and ledgers verified by human agents and auditors, and guaranteed by human insurance companies and regulatory bodies, to an equivalent digital trust concept that can be generated algorithmically.
For centuries, human civilization has relied on various forms of trust infrastructure, from tribal kinship to large institutions like governments, insurance companies, audit firms, and legal systems. While these systems have facilitated cooperation and economic growth, they come at an extremely high cost. It is estimated that humans spend over $9 trillion annually on trust-related expenses, including insurance ($8.0 trillion), legal systems (over $1.0 trillion), and auditing ($290 billion). This massive expenditure highlights a fundamental problem: current trust models cannot effectively scale in the digital age. They are analog—slower, more expensive, and more fragmented than the always-online, highly automated, and rapidly evolving digital economy they depend on.
Trustware provides the essential qualities of trust to ordinary data through a fully algorithmic process: validity and finality. Validity ensures data consistency and correctness with mathematical certainty. Finality guarantees the permanence of data, which cannot be changed unless at a tremendous cost.
Ethereum allows these attributes to be added to data in a scalable manner, without continuous human intervention, thereby achieving trust at near-zero marginal cost. Through this approach, with its powerful public network and breakthrough cryptoeconomic algorithms that generate digital trust, Ethereum can significantly improve financial transaction verification in terms of speed, cost, security, and scale.
Investment Case
For years, investors have considered ETH as the "second-largest cryptocurrency". While this is true, it misses the point. Now, they understand that ETH represents the explosive growth of stablecoins and other tokenized assets, which they see discussed in business channels daily and may even be using in their everyday lives.
They understand that ETH supports the prediction markets they see online and the new tokenized stocks Robinhood is launching. With landmark legislative proposals like the GENIUS and CLARITY acts, this wave of innovation will only intensify. Ethereum's role as the platform driving the future global economy is increasingly recognized.
Ethereum was born for this moment. In terms of security, assurance, and resilience, Ethereum is top-tier. The tenth anniversary of its Genesis Block is a celebration of its unparalleled achievements in digital and traditional asset technology over the past decade.
- Economic Security: With over $100 billion in staked capital and over 100,000 validators, Ethereum has built a strong defense against attacks.
- Network Effects: Ethereum has the deepest liquidity, most developers (twice as many as the next blockchain), and the richest application ecosystem. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) standard dominates smart contract development, and all mainstream stablecoins use Ethereum as their primary platform.
- Proven Adaptability and Continuous Upgrades: Through complex upgrades like Merge (transition to Proof of Stake, reducing energy consumption by 99.95%) and Dencun (reducing rollup fees by 90%), Ethereum demonstrated resilience and continuous improvement in its first decade without any downtime.
- Global Neutrality and Decentralization: Unlike other power-centralized blockchains, Ethereum is not controlled by a single company or entity. With over 100,000 validator nodes spread across 80+ countries/regions, over 67% of nodes running outside the US, it proves its anti-fragility and reliable neutrality.
- Institutional Validation and Adoption: Global institutions like BlackRock, JPMorgan, Visa, and Franklin Templeton have begun using Ethereum for tokenized assets, payments, and private equity investments, validating its security model and reliability. The total value of real-world assets tokenized on Ethereum has exceeded $13 billion, with a monthly growth rate of 6.75%.
Despite Ethereum's technological maturity and the ongoing consolidation of the digital asset infrastructure market, its economic potential remains in its early stages. Cryptocurrency's total market value represents only 0.3% of global wealth, and tokenized securities occupy only a small part of the capital markets.
However, regulation is becoming clearer, especially in the US, accelerating its adoption of cryptocurrencies, shifting from resistance to embracing digital assets. The convergence of AI and blockchain has created an unprecedented demand for trustless infrastructure: as AI agents begin trading at machine speed, they will need machine trust. Ethereum is the only infrastructure prepared for an economic environment that requires algorithmic mutual trust.
For institutions, holding ETH means owning a stake in the digital economy's infrastructure at a price far below its ultimate value. ETH can be used to pay for network transactions and serves as a store of value. Unlike Bitcoin, ETH can generate cash flow through staking. Moreover, like stocks, ETH's value will grow as the Ethereum platform becomes more widespread. It combines the properties of commodities, currency, and capital assets into a unique and highly attractive asset.
As the Trustware report points out, ETH, as economic bandwidth, will guarantee the value of assets expected to be issued and traded on the platform in the coming years, driving strong value growth.
The Trust Machine is Built
The trust machine is built. It continues to operate, self-improve, create more value, and attract more users. The question is not whether to believe in Ethereum, but whether to believe in the digitization of trust. If you do, the investment rationale for owning a part of the future global economic base becomes self-evident.
