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TL;DR: BlackRock just moved $561M of Bitcoin to Coinbase…
…and bought $95M of Ethereum instead.
At the exact same time, Ethereum announced the restructuring of its entire protocol R&D.
Ethereum’s next era has already begun and today we’re cheering them on as @VivekVentures testifies to congress about Ethereum today.
He'll tell them that $140 billion of stablecoins & $10 billion of RWAs are already on Ethereum.
And that Ethereum's decentralization is why the U.S. should support it.
📉 BlackRock Sells BTC, Buys ETH: What It Really Means
Over the last 48 hours:
BlackRock deposited 5,362.37 BTC ($561M) to Coinbase
It withdrew 37,241 ETH ($95M) from Coinbase
It was BlackRock’s first Bitcoin sale in over a month
Some are calling this rotation. Others are calling it positioning. But either way:
This is the biggest institutional signal yet that Ethereum isn’t just a tech platform—it’s an investable asset with real utility.
📈 Price Check:
🗣️ “Now that investors get that Bitcoin is digital gold, they’re asking: what else can crypto do? Ethereum is the natural next step.”
— Austin King, CEO of Omni
Trevor Koverko called it “beyond notable,” saying this isn’t a bearish BTC take—it’s a huge bet on Ethereum staking, smart contracts, and utility.
🧠 The Ethereum Foundation Just Rebranded to “Protocol” – Here’s Why It Matters
While BlackRock rotates into ETH, Ethereum Foundation (EF) just dropped major internal news:
They’re restructuring the EF research and dev team under a new, focused group called Protocol—with a mandate to scale Ethereum at every layer.
The 3 Strategic Goals they’ve mapped:
1️⃣ Scale Layer 1 (L1)
Improve the base Ethereum chain’s speed, cost, and scalability while keeping decentralization intact.
✅ Think: Cheaper transactions, faster finality, better throughput.
2️⃣ Scale Blobs
Accelerate blob-carrying transactions (aka “blobs”), which help Layer 2s operate faster and cheaper by storing large data chunks offchain.
✅ This is the next evolution of rollups. It’s how ETH plans to support massive demand without clogging.
3️⃣ Improve UX
Focused effort to make Ethereum easier for everyday users. Better wallets. Easier onboarding. Seamless dApp experiences.
✅ For ETH to go global, this has to happen. And they’re finally prioritizing it.
👀 Key Protocol Leads Now Assigned:
L1 Scaling: Tim Beiko, Ansgar Dietrichs
L2 Scaling (Blobs): Alex Stokes, Francesco D’Amato
UX: Barnabé Monnot, Josh Rudolf
Strategic Advisor: Dankrad Feist
📚 Crypto-native Terms Explained (Quick Glossary)
Term | What It Means |
|---|---|
L1 | Ethereum’s base chain where most core activity lives |
L2 | Chains built on top of Ethereum (like Optimism, Arbitrum) to scale faster/cheaper |
Blobs | A new way for L2s to store large data on ETH cheaply; unlocks real scale |
Protocol | Ethereum Foundation’s newly named R&D team focused on shipping upgrades fast |
Finality | The point at which a transaction is irreversible and locked in |
🔥 Actionable Alpha
✅ ETH is entering a new institutional narrative.
ETH staking yields, smart contracts, and productive use cases = far more appealing than BTC’s “digital gold” alone.
✅ Expect institutional flows to compound.
The ETH ETF narrative + SEC greenlight on staking = TradFi stacking ETH as productive collateral.
✅ L2s will explode with blob integration.
Blobs reduce gas costs for rollups and let chains like Base, Starknet, and Optimism scale 10x faster.
✅ DeFi + AI + RWA will thrive on this new foundation.
With ETH focusing on usability, composability, and speed, protocols like MidasRWA, Virtuals, Vader AI and others will have more room to flourish.
✅ Now is the time to position.
ETH is still massively undervalued relative to what it’s becoming. BlackRock knows it. Protocol is shipping it. Don’t miss it.
🧨 Final Take
You don’t make a $95M ETH buy unless you believe it has a bigger role to play.
BlackRock knows what’s coming: the shift from store-of-value to value layer for the internet.
And Ethereum just got laser-focused on making that a reality.
Crypto isn’t pivoting. It’s evolving.
And if you’re watching closely—you can be early to the next leg of the cycle.
Stay early. Stay Nugg’d.
-Nick
Founder, CryptoNuggs