The accounting standards for the classification of crypto assets are clear; it simply depends on which set of accounting standards applies to the company you are observing.
Regarding the recent Ethereum version of the "MicroStrategy Summer" craze, can $ETH really replicate the "positive flywheel" of BTC MicroStrategy? Here are some personal viewpoints: 1) The ETH MicroStrategy is indeed modeled after the successful example of BTC MicroStrategy, and in the short term, many U.S. stock companies will try to FOMO, creating a wave of positive flywheel. Regardless of how the U.S. stock market is operated, the fact that traditional institutional funds and retail investors are buying $ETH as a reserve asset has genuinely pulled Ethereum out of its long-term sluggish state. In other words, FOMO driving price increases is an unchanging rule in the crypto market; however, this time the FOMO participants are no longer just retail investors from the crypto space, but rather real money from Wall Street, which at least verifies that ETH has finally escaped the predicament of purely relying on narratives from the crypto space and is starting to attract incremental funds from outside the circle. 2) BTC is closer to the positioning of "digital gold" as a reserve asset, with relatively stable value and clear expectations, while ETH is essentially a "productive asset," with its value tied to multiple factors such as the usage rate of the Ethereum network, gas fee income, and ecological development. This means that the volatility and uncertainty of ETH as a reserve asset are greater. If the Ethereum ecosystem encounters significant technical security issues, or if regulators apply pressure on DeFi, staking, and other functions, the risks and volatility variables faced by ETH as a reserve asset could be much larger than those for BTC. Therefore, while the narrative logic of BTC MicroStrategy can be referenced, it does not mean that the market pricing and valuation logic can remain consistent. 3) The Ethereum ecosystem has a more mature DeFi infrastructure accumulation and richer narrative extensibility compared to BTC. Through the staking mechanism, ETH can generate about 3-4% native yield, making it akin to "on-chain interest-bearing treasury bonds" in the crypto world. Institutions buying into this story may see it as a short-term negative for the previously constructed BTC layer 2 and various infrastructures providing native asset yields for BTC, but in the long run, it is quite the opposite. Once ETH plays a greater catalytic role as a programmable interest-bearing asset in the ETH MicroStrategy, it will instead stimulate the BTC ecosystem to develop more rapidly and fill in the foundational infrastructure. 4) This round of MicroStrategy Summer is essentially a major reshuffling of the narrative direction in Crypto's past. Previously, project parties constructed projects and spread technical narratives to VCs and retail investors in the market, which were essentially aimed at the native residents of the crypto space. Now, this new narrative, whether it’s RWA or TradiFi, may need to tell stories to Wall Street. The key difference is that Wall Street does not buy into pure concepts; they want PMF—real user growth, revenue models, market size, etc. This forces crypto projects to shift from a "technology narrative orientation" to a "business value orientation," which is not the pressure that previous competitor Solana brought to Ethereum? Ultimately, it must be faced. 5) This round of MicroStrategy concepts in the U.S. stock market, including SharpLink Gaming, Bitmine Immersion Tech, Bit Digital, BTCS Inc., etc., are mostly companies that have struggled with growth in traditional capital market businesses and need to integrate crypto to find new breakthroughs. Their choice to go all-in on crypto assets is often due to a lack of growth points in their main business, forcing them to seek new value growth engines. The reason these operators dare to be so aggressive is largely due to the "arbitrage window" created by the U.S. government's bold push for reform in the crypto industry before the regulatory mechanism matures. In the short term, they have exploited many legal and compliance loopholes—such as the ambiguity of accounting standards for crypto asset classification, lenient SEC disclosure requirements, and gray areas in tax treatment, etc. MicroStrategy's success largely benefited from the super bull market of BTC, but as a replicator, they may not have the same luck and operational ability. Therefore, the market heat brought by these operators is not much different from the previous pure crypto native narrative hype; it is essentially a gamble and trial-and-error, and one must remain vigilant about investment risks. Note: This round of MicroStrategy Summer is more like a "big drill" for crypto entering the mainstream financial system. Success brings joy to all, while failure is a small joy (after all, any experiment that can pull ETH out of the narrative fatigue quagmire is a success, regardless of the outcome!).
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