Ethereum Turns 10 & Corporate Crypto Treasuries Just Hit $100B

Ethereum just hit its 10-year milestone, and it wasn’t just about cake and nostalgia. Institutional crypto treasuries quietly crossed $100 billion, and Ether is starting to take center stage.

• ETH makes up $4B of that, or 1.09% of corporate crypto treasury holdings
• Standard Chartered predicts ETH could break $4,000 by year-end
• Ether adoption is outpacing Bitcoin’s early treasury phase
• ETFs and staking yield are driving institutional appetite

The Quiet Rise of Institutional Ether

As Ethereum turned 10, institutional buying of Ether quietly accelerated. According to Standard Chartered, the top 10 corporate crypto treasury firms now hold over 1% of total ETH supply, and they’ve been accumulating fast since early June.

What’s different this time is that institutions aren’t just buying ETH for speculation. They’re using it for staking, tapping into native yield opportunities that Bitcoin simply doesn’t offer. This makes ETH not just a reserve asset, but a productive one.

Standard Chartered sees this trend continuing, projecting that corporates could eventually own 10% of all ETH. That would be a 10x jump from current holdings, a potentially huge supply squeeze in the making.

Net Ether buying since June 1, treasury firms, ETH ETFs. Source: Standard Chartered

Add to that the $5.3 billion in net inflows into ETH ETFs since early July (a record 19-day streak), and the market structure is starting to shift. Corporate buyers and ETFs are now key players in ETH liquidity.

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s core fundamentals remain strong:

• It’s still the largest DeFi ecosystem, with $85B+ in TVL
• ETH has outlived the ICO boom, DeFi summer, and NFT mania
• Its modular roadmap and staking model position it well for the next cycle

Ethereum’s history. Source: Cointelegraph

To Sum Up

Bitcoin was once the default treasury bet. Today, ETH is stepping into that role, but with yield, interoperability, and a more programmable future. Institutional players are noticing.

But there’s still a long way to go. ETH needs to prove it can scale without losing decentralization. And corporate adoption doesn’t always align with crypto-native values. More money in the system could also mean more friction ahead.

Still, if you’re watching the rotation of power in Web3, from speculation to infrastructure, from hype to utility, then Ethereum’s quiet treasury takeover might be one of the biggest under-the-radar signals out there.