Bitwise CEO states: The mission of Ethereum is to upgrade Web2, not to replace Bitcoin.

Hunter Horsley, CEO of the renowned encryption asset management company Bitwise, recently elaborated on his profound insights regarding Ethereum (Ethereum, ETH) on the social media platform X. Horsley clearly pointed out that the core goal of Ethereum is not to compete directly with Bitcoin. Instead, it is committed to being a critical underlying technology to upgrade and replace outdated Web2 platforms and traditional financial infrastructure.

Abandon the thinking of "market capitalization ranking" and embrace the blockchain "application store" model

Horsley particularly emphasized the importance of shifting traditional perceptual perspectives in his exposition. He believes that it is necessary to break away from the conventional "CoinMarketCap perspective" — that is, people merely view each cryptocurrency as another token asset with a different market cap.

Horsley vividly compares the blockchain ecosystem to the mobile application world: just as various mobile applications (Apps) share the same operating system platform (such as iOS or Android), yet offer distinct functionalities; different blockchain networks (public chains) also provide highly specialized and entirely different solutions.

Ethereum: The Cornerstone Platform for Building Web3 Finance and dApps

From this perspective, Ethereum's positioning is becoming increasingly clear—it's becoming the core foundational layer of the next generation financial system (DeFi) and decentralized applications (dApp). With its revolutionary smart contract capabilities, developers are able to break free from the rigid architecture constraints of the Web2 system, gradually replacing existing centralized services that create information islands with flexible, transparent, and open-source solutions.

Industry Consensus: Permissionless and Dynamic Evolution are the Keys to Victory

The entire Ethereum ecosystem has already demonstrated the power of this transformation. Recently, discussions within the blockchain industry have frequently emphasized that Ethereum's core advantages lie in its decentralization and permissionless (Permissionless) design: anyone can build applications, participate in validation, or execute transactions on it without waiting for approval from any centralized entity.

More importantly, in stark contrast to the closed frameworks of traditional Web2 giants, Ethereum's architecture possesses dynamic evolution capabilities: it can introduce new features and upgrades through community consensus without resorting to destructive hard forks that cause network splits (Hard Fork). This upgradability and adaptability are crucial guarantees for its long-term viability.

In June, Hunter Horsley also stated that the true competitors of Bitcoin are not gold, but rather U.S. Treasury bonds and government bonds, which are the ultimate "political" value storage tools, while gold and Bitcoin exist as depoliticized alternatives.