Arthur Hayes Says Robinhood’s Ethereum Security Choice Could Send Ether to $5,000 at EastPoint: Seoul 2026

"Robinhood chose Ethereum as the security layer for its own blockchain. A new narrative for Ethereum has begun with Robinhood."

Arthur Hayes, CEO of Flop Labs and chief investment officer at Maelstrom, made the remarks on Sept. 28 at the Web3 private conference EastPoint: Seoul 2026 at the Westin Seoul Parnas in Seoul’s Gangnam district.

Hayes again emphasized Ethereum’s security. He said Robinhood, one of the world’s largest retail financial platforms, selected Ethereum as the security layer for its new tokenization platform. That, in turn, makes it much easier for other institutions to argue internally that they should use Ethereum as well.

Robinhood’s shift also makes it easier for other large institutions to choose Ethereum as their base layer, he said. He added that this narrative could lift Ether to about $5,000 within roughly a year. With Ether now trading at about $2,650, that implies nearly double the current price.

Hayes also discussed Ethena, the issuer of the USDe stablecoin. He said USDe has grown quickly to become one of the largest stablecoins by circulating supply, but the Ethena token has fallen. The main reason, he said, is that Bitcoin basis yields declined.

If investors cannot earn sufficient yield, there is little reason to hold USDe while taking crypto risk.

Even so, Hayes said the short-term outlook is not bleak. Bitcoin has recently climbed quickly from $60,000 to $85,000, and basis yields are rising again. That means the gap between yields available through Ethena and US Treasury yields is widening.

He added that USDe circulation had been declining but is increasing again. If those two factors work together, they could create momentum to lift the Ethena token from about $0.27 to $1.

On decentralized exchange Uniswap, Hayes said the project is moving toward using fees to return value to token investors. Uniswap is using protocol revenue to buy back tokens and reduce supply. He said that is similar to a stock buyback, and lower supply is a positive factor for token prices.

Those token buybacks are happening alongside the broader rise in on-chain assets, he said. He added that Uniswap is one of the key protocols used to execute on-chain transactions as institutions tokenize assets.

Oh Yoo-rim / Lee Joon-hyung, Bloomingbit reporter