Messari's 2026 Cryptocurrency Thesis: Power Struggles, Stablecoins, and Skepticism (Part Two)
- Core View: The Messari report reveals that Ethereum is facing a crisis of economic value leakage.
- Key Elements:
- After the Dencun upgrade, transaction fees on the Ethereum mainnet and ETH burn volume have sharply decreased.
- Yield-bearing stablecoins (e.g., USDe) are challenging the traditional stablecoin model.
- The report has a relatively high prediction accuracy rate, but it should be viewed critically.
- Market Impact: May reshape the L1 competitive landscape and stablecoin market structure.
- Timeliness Note: Medium-term impact.
In the first part, I focused on Messari's structural arguments around the L1 valuation trap, chain abstraction, AI agents, derivatives, and DePIN. In this second part, the discussion shifts from growth narratives to the internal tensions within the crypto system—specifically, Ethereum's positioning, the evolution of stablecoins, and the importance of maintaining skepticism when reading research reports produced by institutions.
These sections are less about where capital is flowing and more about where capital wants to flow, further exploring where value capture is quietly leaking away and why some long-held assumptions may no longer hold.
Ethereum's Identity Crisis
One of the most striking sections of the report is Messari's deep dive into Ethereum's strategic dilemma. The report poses a thought-provoking question: Is Ethereum gradually becoming a "settlement dumping ground" for its own Layer 2 ecosystem?
Context is important to understand this concern.
The Ethereum Dencun upgrade and EIP-4844 introduced blobs, significantly reducing data availability costs for L2s. From a user and scalability perspective, this upgrade was highly successful. Transaction fees dropped, and the operational costs for Rollups also decreased substantially.
However, the economic side effects of this are far less favorable for Ethereum itself.
Before blobs, applications like Uniswap required users to transact directly on the Ethereum mainnet, consuming ETH and participating in fee burning. Post-upgrade, most of this transaction activity migrated to L2s, where... according to which fees are collected at the rollup level. Ethereum still receives settlement fees, but only a fraction of what it used to collect.
Consequently, Ethereum's gas consumption has declined, the ETH burn rate has slowed, and by 2025, the asset is projected to shift from being deflationary to inflationary. This is not merely a technical footnote—it directly impacts Ethereum's monetary narrative.
Messari argues that unless Ethereum can restore its economic gravity through mechanisms like shared sequencers, mainnet execution upgrades, or some form of native sharding, its valuation will increasingly rely on the "digital gold" narrative.
And in that competition, Ethereum faces a structural disadvantage. As a monetary asset, it cannot win. Bitcoin's success hinges on its simplicity, immutability, and brand clarity. If execution layer relevance cannot be restored, Ethereum risks being squeezed between Bitcoin's monetary dominance and L2s' application dominance.
Yield-Bearing Stablecoins and the Shift to Shadow Banking
Another major theme of the report is the shift of stablecoins from passive settlement tools to active yield-generating instruments.
Messari predicts that interest-bearing stablecoins will increasingly eat into the market share of Tether. The reason is simple: institutions are no longer willing to forgo a 5% risk-free yield to hold non-yielding digital dollars.
The report introduces the concept of "risk-free yield extraction." Historically, USDT holders essentially gifted their yield to Tether, which reinvested its reserves, capturing billions in profit annually. In a high-interest-rate environment, this inefficiency becomes glaringly obvious and untenable.
The protocol Ethena directly challenges this model. Ethena combines liquid staking tokens with a delta-neutral hedging strategy, distributing the underlying yield to stablecoin holders. Importantly, USDe's listing on major centralized exchanges in 2025 grants it genuine settlement utility, not just DeFi composability.
However, Messari does not ignore the risks.
Since USDe is a synthetic stablecoin backed by derivative hedges, it carries a structural depeg risk in extreme market conditions. Its yield primarily stems from two sources: staking rewards from LSTs and funding rates paid by perpetual futures traders.
In a bull market, long traders subsidize the entire system, allowing USDe holders to "collect rent." In a prolonged bear market, the flow reverses, and the system must pay to maintain its hedge. Thus, the yield is cyclical, not fixed.
Messari's optimism implicitly assumes persistent leverage demand and a favorable Bitcoin market regime. LST premium trends are a key metric to watch; sustained distortions often signal rising pressure beneath the surface.
Backtesting and Healthy Skepticism
Despite the depth and historical accuracy of Messari's research, it should not be treated as gospel.
As a research platform with institutional stakeholders, Messari inevitably reflects portfolio exposures and strategic biases. The report maintains a consistently optimistic tone. Its positioning on Solana, for example, aligns closely with its disclosed holdings. This doesn't invalidate the thesis but does warrant a critical distance.
To test this, I conducted an AI-assisted backtest of Messari's major predictions in recent years.
The results were mixed but illuminating. In late 2023, Messari's prediction that Solana was the only L1 token with a real shot at challenging Ethereum proved remarkably accurate, with SOL's price soaring from around $20 to over $200 in 2024. Its relatively bearish stance on Ethereum was also validated, with the ETH/BTC ratio weakening throughout 2025.
Predictions on DePIN were partially correct. Major projects like Render and Helium performed well, but many smaller ones ultimately failed. Stablecoin predictions were more accurate, with yield-bearing stablecoins poised to be one of the most stable growth areas in 2025.
Overall, the hit rate is high—but not perfect.
This reinforces a broader point: the best way to read Messari reports is as a directional compass, not a trading manual. They excel at identifying structural shifts early, but they do not account for liquidity timing, narrative decay, or retail-driven reflexivity.
Ethereum's Identity Crisis
One of the most striking sections of the report is Messari's deep dive into Ethereum's strategic dilemma. The report poses a thought-provoking question: Is Ethereum gradually becoming a "settlement dumping ground" for its own Layer 2 ecosystem?
Context is important to understand this concern.
The Ethereum Dencun upgrade and EIP-4844 introduced blobs, significantly reducing data availability costs for L2s. From a user and scalability perspective, this upgrade was highly successful. Transaction fees dropped, and the operational costs for Rollups also decreased substantially.
However, the economic side effects of this are far less favorable for Ethereum itself.
Before blobs, applications like Uniswap required users to transact directly on the Ethereum mainnet, consuming ETH and participating in fee burning. Post-upgrade, most of this transaction activity migrated to L2s, where... according to which fees are collected at the rollup level. Ethereum still receives settlement fees, but only a fraction of what it used to collect.
Consequently, Ethereum's gas consumption has declined, the ETH burn rate has slowed, and by 2025, the asset is projected to shift from being deflationary to inflationary. This is not merely a technical footnote—it directly impacts Ethereum's monetary narrative.
Messari argues that unless Ethereum can restore its economic gravity through mechanisms like shared sequencers, mainnet execution upgrades, or some form of native sharding, its valuation will increasingly rely on the "digital gold" narrative.
And in that competition, Ethereum faces a structural disadvantage. As a monetary asset, it cannot win. Bitcoin's success hinges on its simplicity, immutability, and brand clarity. If execution layer relevance cannot be restored, Ethereum risks being squeezed between Bitcoin's monetary dominance and L2s' application dominance.
Yield-Bearing Stablecoins and the Shift to Shadow Banking
Another major theme of the report is the shift of stablecoins from passive settlement tools to active yield-generating instruments.
Messari predicts that interest-bearing stablecoins will increasingly eat into the market share of Tether. The reason is simple: institutions are no longer willing to forgo a 5% risk-free yield to hold non-yielding digital dollars.
The report introduces the concept of "risk-free yield extraction." Historically, USDT holders essentially gifted their yield to Tether, which reinvested its reserves, capturing billions in profit annually. In a high-interest-rate environment, this inefficiency becomes glaringly obvious and untenable.
The protocol Ethena directly challenges this model. Ethena combines liquid staking tokens with a delta-neutral hedging strategy, distributing the underlying yield to stablecoin holders. Importantly, USDe's listing on major centralized exchanges in 2025 grants it genuine settlement utility, not just DeFi composability.
However, Messari does not ignore the risks.
Since USDe is a synthetic stablecoin backed by derivative hedges, it carries a structural depeg risk in extreme market conditions. Its yield primarily stems from two sources: staking rewards from LSTs and funding rates paid by perpetual futures traders.
In a bull market, long traders subsidize the entire system, allowing USDe holders to "collect rent." In a prolonged bear market, the flow reverses, and the system must pay to maintain its hedge. Thus, the yield is cyclical, not fixed.
Messari's optimism implicitly assumes persistent leverage demand and a favorable Bitcoin market regime. LST premium trends are a key metric to watch; sustained distortions often signal rising pressure beneath the surface.
Backtesting and Healthy Skepticism
Despite the depth and historical accuracy of Messari's research, it should not be treated as gospel.
As a research platform with institutional stakeholders, Messari inevitably reflects portfolio exposures and strategic biases. The report maintains a consistently optimistic tone. Its positioning on Solana, for example, aligns closely with its disclosed holdings. This doesn't invalidate the thesis but does warrant a critical distance.
To test this, I conducted an AI-assisted backtest of Messari's major predictions in recent years.
The results were mixed but illuminating. In late 2023, Messari's prediction that Solana was the only L1 token with a real shot at challenging Ethereum proved remarkably accurate, with SOL's price soaring from around $20 to over $200 in 2024. Its relatively bearish stance on Ethereum was also validated, with the ETH/BTC ratio weakening throughout 2025.
Predictions on DePIN were partially correct. Major projects like Render and Helium performed well, but many smaller ones ultimately failed. Stablecoin predictions were more accurate, with yield-bearing stablecoins poised to be one of the most stable growth areas in 2025.
Overall, the hit rate is high—but not perfect.
This reinforces a broader point: the best way to read Messari reports is as a directional compass, not a trading manual. They excel at identifying structural shifts early, but they do not account for liquidity timing, narrative decay, or retail-driven reflexivity.
