Compass Investments

– Reed suggests that Ethereum’s 65% drop in price against Bitcoin since Merge is the result of accumulated unjustified promises.

Critics blame the Ethereum Foundation, claiming that it prioritizes ESG principles and philosophy over the profitability and usability of steaking.

Reed cites the dominance of third-party developers and rollup-oriented design as factors that diminish the value of the underlying protocol.

A pointed criticism from Ethereum developers suggests that the 65 percent drop in the value of ether to bitcoin (BTC) since Merge is due to specific miscalculations by the Ethereum Foundation rather than general market cycles or coordination issues.

Reed, an ICO participant still involved in Ethereum (ETH) development, published an indictment attributing the poor performance to accumulated execution debt, including names mentioned, dates, and missed product development milestones.

Reed’s key metric matches open market data: the ETH/BTC ratio peaked around 0.085 during Merge in September 2022.

By the end of May, it had dropped to around 0.028, indicating Ethereum’s underperformance compared to Bitcoin. Ether is currently trading below $2,000, showing a 21% decline over the past year.

Reed rejects Bankless co-founder David Hoffman’s view of Ethereum’s “deserved ceiling” as a noble constraint. He argues that the ceiling is lower than bulls expect for reasons related to specific actions, not coordination theory.

Reed points to credit and real assets in companies like Figure and Securitize, and says he still maintains long positions in ether.

Reed suggests that Merge’s emphasis on 99.95% energy reduction answers questions investors have never asked.

Institutions were looking for yield, developers were looking for completeness, and users were looking for cheaper transactions. Solana, meanwhile, offered high speed.

Proof-of-stake had been on the roadmap since 2015, and it took seven years to realize. Solana launched the mainnet beta in March 2020 and released wallets, decentralized exchanges and money markets while Ethereum was discussing specifications.

Vitalik Buterin was writing in 2024-2025, moving from Casper specs to plurality and network states.

Reed sees this tone as more of an established cultural stance for Ethereum than a proactive competitive strategy.

According to Reed, the “smoking gun” is the lack of a third-party mining application three years after Merge.