ETH at a “Fork in the Road” Between ETFs and Utility

As Ethereum marks its tenth anniversary, Jamie Elkaleh, the CMO of Bitget Wallet, believes Ethereum’s next decade won’t be defined just by ETFs or institutional adoption alone, but by how accessible Ethereum becomes for everyday users through their crypto wallets.

In a recently published op-ed, Elkaleh explores Ethereum’s transformation from a revolutionary smart contract platform to a globally traded financial asset. However, he warned that without a major change in user experience, the protocol risks becoming detached from its original mission.

Ethereum’s “quiet pivot” from utility to a commodity

Ethereum has undeniably reshaped the blockchain landscape. It has secured over $500 billion in value and is powering thousands of decentralized applications (dApps). But Elkaleh notes that while Ethereum’s financial footprint has grown, its real-world utility remains limited for mainstream users.

“Most people don’t experience Ethereum in their daily lives. They experience it through price charts, gas fees, and trading dashboards,” Elkaleh writes. Instead of serving as open infrastructure for global finance, Ethereum is now behaving more like a “productive commodity.”

With over $5.4 billion flowing into ETH ETFs in July and several public companies adding ETH to their balance sheets, institutional interest is surging. Elkaleh calls this a “quiet pivot,” one that risks turning ETH into the next digital gold. While this prospect is valuable, he believes it would be functionally distant from everyday users.

Crypto Wallets Are the New Front Door

Rather than ETFs or staking yields, Elkaleh believes crypto wallets will determine Ethereum’s true trajectory in the years ahead.

“Crypto wallets are where users trade, save, pay, and explore Web3. They’re also where complexity lives — gas settings, signatures, bridging, approvals,” he says. Today’s crypto wallets have evolved far beyond key management and are becoming user-centric gateways to on-chain economies.

Emerging features like smart contract wallets, gasless transactions, embedded dApps, and AI-guided UX are helping bridge the gap between technical infrastructure and intuitive user experiences, especially in emerging markets, where crypto wallets are increasingly seen as financial lifelines.

Defining Choice for Ethereum’s Future

As Ethereum enters its second decade, Elkaleh emphasizes the fork in the road ahead. The network can either evolve as open infrastructure for everyday users and real-world utility, or continue down a path where its value is locked in staking contracts and ETF vaults.

“Both paths are valuable,” Elkaleh writes, “but only one leads to mainstream relevance.” He concludes by reaffirming Bitget Wallet’s mission to make crypto simple, useful, and accessible.

“The promise of Ethereum has always been about more than market cycles. It’s about reimagining what financial infrastructure can look like, open, programmable, and accessible to all.”

Related: Bitget Partners University of Zurich to Offer Blockchain Summer School Scholarships