Author: Yu Gu, ChainCatcher
Under the shadow of a series of negative news such as the continuous resignation of high-level foundation executives and multiple institutions selling off ETH, the Ethereum ecosystem has once again been hit by sensational news.
Today, David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, confirmed on the X platform that he has liquidated all his ETH holdings. Simultaneously, news emerged that Bankless is undergoing massive layoffs and the two founders are parting ways.
In response, prominent KOL Chen Jian gave a rather vivid analogy—"Bankless co-founder David selling all his ETH is similar in nature to Huang Chang-yeop's defection from North Korea back in the day." The impact of this statement is enough to send a chill down the spine of anyone familiar with Bankless's status in the Ethereum ecosystem.
However, in the current context of the crypto industry's increasing mainstream and institutional adoption, and with the basic transfer of Ethereum's narrative authority, Bankless's retreat is actually understandable and may not necessarily be negative news for Ethereum.
I. Bankless: The Former "Propaganda Department" of Ethereum
Before delving into this earthquake, one must first understand what Bankless truly represents in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Bankless is far more than just a crypto media platform. It began as a podcast and a Substack subscription channel, with a core idea simple: to replace traditional banking using self-custody, DeFi, and Ethereum as the settlement layer for a new financial system.
David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams vigorously advocated that Ethereum is "ultra sound money." They built a media brand around Ethereum, maximizing its exposure and becoming two of the loudest Ethereum supporters in the industry. Today, Bankless is widely recognized as one of the most influential media brands in the crypto world, especially within the Ethereum ecosystem.
David Hoffman is particularly known for his firm personal beliefs. During the 2018 bear market, when Ethereum's price fell to $300, he actively bought ETH. Consequently, he became a symbol of Ethereum maximalism on Crypto Twitter.
Bankless's unique position lies in the fact that it is not merely a "reporter" on the Ethereum ecosystem but a co-builder of the Ethereum narrative itself.
"Ethereum is ultrasound money," "Ethereum will usher in the industrial revolution of the internet," "Ethereum is digital oil"... A series of his viewpoints have been widely disseminated in the crypto industry, injecting a continuous stream of belief and fuel into the Ethereum ecosystem.
From conversations with Vitalik Buterin to in-depth analyses of the Ethereum roadmap, and continuously providing theoretical packaging for new narratives like L2, DeFi, and restaking, Bankless has long played the dual role of the Ethereum community's "information hub" and "spiritual lighthouse." The two co-founders have also long acted as core evangelists for Ethereum—Hoffman himself publicly stated that 99% of his personal wealth was held in Ethereum.
Chen Jian compared Bankless to the "Ethereum party newspaper"—the accuracy of this metaphor lies in revealing that Bankless's role had long transcended that of a regular commercial media outlet; it was a value-output machine with a "quasi-official" or "semi-official" status within the ecosystem.
However, in the last year or two, Bankless's narrative authority within the Ethereum ecosystem has noticeably weakened, rarely putting forward distinctive viewpoints with high virality and unique perspectives.
II. What Exactly Happened
Earlier today, Bankless co-founder David Hoffman announced that he had sold all his ETH holdings. The other co-founder, Ryan Sean Adams, subsequently retweeted, stating that the first phase of Bankless has ended, and his six-year collaboration with David exploring crypto, DeFi, and Ethereum has come to a close. They have now entered the second phase, transitioning to a supporting role to continue providing support for Bankless.
Soon, Lucas Campbell, co-founder of FireEyes DAO and former Bankless research analyst, further disclosed on X that Bankless apparently fired most of its team members yesterday, and its founders did not offer a single word of thanks or a public statement to help the team members find new positions.
Jean-Paul Faraj, Head of Business Development at Bankless, posted on X recounting his experience working at Bankless, stating that today is his last day at the company, which also indirectly confirms the accuracy of the mass layoff news.
This series of messages conveys at least two clear signals: first, Bankless co-founder David Hoffman is no longer a staunch ETH bull, and second, after massive layoffs, Bankless will struggle to maintain its current content output frequency and intensity, and its status as Ethereum's "propaganda department" is over.
There have been signs of all this. Just a day ago, Ryan Sean Adams criticized the Ethereum Foundation, stating, "The future of Ethereum can no longer rely on the Ethereum Foundation (EF). EF is important, but Ethereum needs new institutions to step in and fill the gaps. We need an organization that genuinely wants Ethereum's asset (ETH) to win—to grow in quantity—and is willing to speak out and execute. EF is not that, and never will be."
And earlier this month, David Hoffman publicly stated on a podcast that he had sold his CryptoPunk, which he had held for years and carried significant symbolic meaning, and converted the proceeds mainly into Zcash (ZEC).
III. The End of a Phased Mission
In Ryan Sean Adams's response, there is a noteworthy statement: Bankless's first-phase mission is over, and it is now moving towards the second phase. So, what exactly was Bankless's first-phase mission? And what is its upcoming mission?
As mentioned earlier, Bankless largely served as a semi-official "propaganda department" for Ethereum, continuously transmitting the specific roles and concepts of new technologies like Layer2 to the crypto community and "recharging faith" in the market.
In the early stages of Ethereum's evolution from a "geek toy" to a "world computer of crypto," such high-density, high-belief content output was essential—it helped Ethereum consolidate its most loyal community amidst the siege of countless public chains and supported ETH's initial narrative premium.
But the problem is, this phased mission is largely complete.
In the past year or two, purely narrative-driven momentum within the crypto industry has noticeably weakened. The growth of adoption increasingly relies on the integration of the traditional financial system, especially in the realms of payments and RWA (Real World Assets). Ethereum no longer needs a few impassioned articles to convince people "not to trust banks," but rather needs to truly get banks, asset management companies, and publicly listed companies to treat Ethereum as infrastructure.
As the type of target audience switches, the baton of narrative has quietly been passed on.
Asset management companies represented by Bitwise, VanEck, and BlackRock are now conveying ETH's value proposition to the traditional financial world through ETF products, research reports, and public statements. While MicroStrategy focuses primarily on Bitcoin, its model of "public companies buying crypto assets" has been emulated by others, and some listed companies have begun incorporating ETH into their balance sheets. Figures with traditional finance backgrounds, such as Tom Lee and Larry Fink, have become the new faces explaining Ethereum's concepts to the mainstream world. Their language is more compliant, professional, and more acceptable to traditional capital.
Bankless's role is being replaced by a more decentralized, professional, and diverse "narrative network."
For a long time, Ethereum's "moat" was not technical superiority or user scale, but a complete system of value narratives jointly woven by Vitalik, the Ethereum Foundation, core developers, and evangelist media like Bankless. Technology can be imitated, ecosystems can be copied, but this community of faith accumulated since 2015 is almost irreplaceable.
Now, although Bankless is fading out, its role is not left in a vacuum. A host of new forces more aligned with Ethereum's current stage of development are naturally taking over, including various institutional research departments, mainstream entrepreneurs, on-chain data platforms, and so on.
From this perspective, Bankless's retreat is not a crisis but an inevitable outcome of the maturation and decentralization of Ethereum's narrative system. A healthy ecosystem should not rely long-term on a single "semi-official" media outlet to sustain its faith. When Ethereum has entered the sightline of mainstream finance, and when ETF fund flows influence market sentiment more than any podcast, the historical mission of the "propaganda department" has already been accomplished.
