My friend dumped all his ETH and called me an idiot for holding

Was out at dinner with a friend last week and he tells me he sold all his ETH. Went all in on meme coins. Said it's not moving and holding is just a pure waste of time.

I didn't push back. Look at the chart, he's not wrong.

But that night it kept bugging me. Couldn't sleep, ended up doomscrolling through a bunch of crypto stuff.

TH ETFs pulled in over 12 billion this year alone. BlackRock is out here pushing staking products. And that's pretty much all institutional money, retail doesn't really buy through ETFs.

On chain doesn't look dead either. Exchange balances keep dropping, people are withdrawing and obviously not planning to dump. Checked Arkham and a few tagged institutional wallets have been adding.

Supply side might be the wildest part. More than half of all ETH is staked right now. Not a whole lot actually floating around. Supply locked up, demand trickling in, and the price just sits there.

Pulled up my contract data on bydfi and open interest has been creeping up while funding rate stays negative. Shorts are paying to hold their positions but price won't break down. Somebody is absorbing all of it on the other side.

Zoom out and it starts to look less random than people think. Retail sees the chart, says ETH is dead, and bounces. Institutions see the numbers, think it's cheap, and keep buying. Fear and greed is bottomed out but money keeps coming in.

Every time retail panics while institutions quietly stack, seems like we already know how that ends. I'd rather be wrong holding ETH than be right holding a meme coin that rugs next week.