Ethereum’s PoS Move Criticized—Did It Cost the Market $1 Trillion?
In a major development, Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer of CoinShares, stated that Ethereum’s pivot to Proof of Stake (PoS) in 2022 was costly.
In 2022, the Ethereum conversion to PoS dramatically reduced energy consumption by over 99%. Notably, ETH’s consistent market volatility raises issues about its long-term impact on the network’s value and stability.
According to Meltem Demirors, PoS weakened the Ethereum core network by enabling the rapid expansion of Layer-2 scaling solutions. According to her, these L2s now process a significant share of transactions.
She believes the network lost a $1 trillion growth opportunity by abandoning Proof of Work (PoW). This has ultimately diluted the Ethereum Layer-1 ecosystem instead of strengthening it. For her, had ETH stayed on PoW, it could have created a solid energy-computation infrastructure that would make it rival Bitcoin side-by-side.
She pointed out that it could have also allowed for strategic innovation in GPU computing, similar to Bitcoin mining advanced hardware development.
Similarly, Ethereum’s economic viability is drawing mixed market reactions. When developers introduced PoS, Ethereum came off as ultra-sound money. This positioning is due to mechanisms like EIP-1559, which burns a portion of transaction fees.
ETH achieved near-zero net issuance for a time, reinforcing its deflationary narrative. However, data from Ultrasound Money now shows that Ethereum is in its longest inflationary period since The Merge. The network currently issues 943,000 ETH annually while burning just 27,000 ETH.
At an annual inflation rate of 0.76%, Ethereum’s earlier deflationary claims are being challenged.
CryptoQuant analysts caution that Ethereum may never become deflationary again without significantly higher network activity. Notably, this has weakened its long-term store-of-value argument.
As we mentioned in our earlier news brief, Justin Drake posited that through the much-anticipated Pectra Upgrade, Ethereum would have to decrease its issuance or increase its token burn to restore its status as ultrasound money.
It is worth mentioning that Ethereum’s broader vision has also come under scrutiny. Peter Szilágyi, a key Ethereum developer, recently stated that ETH was never designed to be money. Instead, it was meant to power a decentralized ecosystem.
This contradicts narratives that positioned ETH as a superior alternative to Bitcoin in terms of scarcity and value retention. Critics argue that a lack of clear positioning could affect Ethereum’s long-term appeal.
Despite these concerns, some industry leaders see benefits in PoS. Vince Yang, CEO of zkLink, pointed out that Ethereum’s scaling activity is at an all-time high, with transaction speeds doubling in recent months due to lower gas fees.
One avenue to enhance Ethereum’s functionality is the Pectra upgrade. As we covered in our latest report, the Ethereum Pectra upgrade went live on the Sepolia testnet but encountered errors exacerbated by an attacker’s activities.
However, Ethereum developers have introduced the ‘Hoodi’ testnet to further refine Pectra’s innovations. All the arguments have weighed down ETH’s price outlook thus far. As of this writing, ETH is trading at $1,967.42, down over 1.4% in the past 24 hours.

Sometimes, the best plays in crypto aren’t the loudest ones, they come from patterns, the kind you only see when you’ve been paying close attention.
That’s exactly what's happening with $SEI.
Over the past few months, WLFI (@worldlibertyfi) has been strategically accumulating $SEI
On February 20, 2025, WLFI made its first move buying 547,990 SEI at $0.23 for $125K.
Less than a month later, on March 14, they doubled down another 541,242 SEI at $0.18 for $100K.
By now, their total holdings sit at 1.1 million SEI, with an average entry of $0.21.
To some, that might not seem like much. But here’s the thing: WLFI isn’t just another player.
They don’t make random bets. They don’t FOMO into hype. They accumulate when they see asymmetric upside. And they’ve been loading up on $SEI while most of the market remains distracted.
That got me thinking, what do they see that others don’t? The Growth?
In March alone, @SeiNetwork's TVL more than doubled, a 100% increase in locked value in just one month.
• $360M TVL; The highest in Sei’s history.
• Stablecoin inflows surging; More liquidity = more confidence.
• Major DeFi protocols launching; From @jlyvrs to @avalonfinance_, Sei’s ecosystem is expanding fast.
Yet, look at $SEI’s price action. It’s still floating under the radar, trading at levels that don’t reflect this level of growth.
The market isn’t paying attention. But smart money is.
➜ Sei’s Giga Upgrade
And then there’s the 'Giga Upgrade' something I don’t think people fully understand yet.
Most narratives around scalability are just marketing. But Sei isn’t making minor improvements, it’s completely rewriting the rules for how an EVM chain operates.
With v3, Sei will achieve 5 GigaGas per second, 50x the throughput of any L1 or L2. To put that in perspective:
- Faster than Solana.
- Faster than Optimistic and ZK Rollups.
- A true Web2-grade blockchain.
It’s not just another upgrade. It’s a fundamental shift. And it goes live in Q2 2025.
➜ Why WLFI’s Accumulation Is a Signal
Big players don’t wait for narratives to go mainstream. They position early.
Here’s what WLFI is seeing:
1️⃣ Sei’s Institutional Push; With U.S.-focused initiatives (like the "Crypto in America" podcast featuring SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce), Sei is building credibility where it matters most.
2️⃣ DeFi Adoption is Exploding; New blue-chip protocols launching mean new yield opportunities and deeper liquidity.
3️⃣ The Performance Gap Is Too Big to Ignore; Sei is about to leap ahead of every other EVM chain in speed, scalability, and usability.
➜ My Take
I’ve seen this play out before. A fundamentally strong project quietly builds, institutions accumulate, and then seemingly overnight the narrative explodes.