At the recently held ETHShanghai 2025 main forum, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain, once again emphasized Ethereum's core position in the blockchain application field. He pointed out that with its first-mover advantage and continuous improvement, Ethereum currently occupies 60%-70% of the application market share, making it highly unlikely for other blockchain projects to challenge Ethereum.

"There's no need to try to replace Ethereum," Xiao Feng stated, adding that other projects need to prove their strategic positioning is different from Ethereum's and provide differentiated value.

Ethereum's Two-Layer Architecture as the Optimal Solution for the "Digital Twin" Phase

At the "Ethereum Decade" themed gathering in August this year, Xiao Feng elaborated on Ethereum's technical advantages. He believes that Ethereum's current layered architecture is the best solution for the "digital twin" phase, perfectly balancing the needs for security, decentralization, and scalability.

"By dividing the 'impossible trinity' into two layers, the base layer focuses more on decentralization and security, while the second layer is responsible for solving scalability and performance issues," Xiao Feng noted, stating that this is currently the best solution global developers have found.

With the accelerating trend of large-scale on-chain tokenization of traditional financial assets, Xiao Feng predicts that 2026-2027 will be the explosive period for asset tokenization. Ethereum, as the underlying system, is fully prepared for this wave.

Latest data shows that the total holdings of Ethereum treasury companies have reached 5.7 million ETH, accounting for 4.71% of the supply; while the total holdings of Ethereum ETFs have reached 6.89 million ETH, accounting for 5.7% of the supply. The combined holdings exceed 11 million ETH, demonstrating strong institutional confidence in Ethereum.

According to the latest information, BitMine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) has continued to increase its holdings of Ethereum (ETH). As of October 21, 2025, its ETH holdings have risen to 3.24 million. In total, it holds approximately $13.4 billion in crypto assets and cash, including 3.24 million ETH, 192 BTC, and cash. As the world's largest Ethereum treasury company, its increased holdings reflect a positive outlook on Ethereum's long-term value.

Application Inflection Point Arrived: Low-Risk DeFi and ZKID Lead New Trends

During the Token2049 summit in Singapore, a dialogue between Xiao Feng and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin revealed new trends in Ethereum application development. Vitalik pointed out that Ethereum applications are now divided into two main categories: one is low-risk DeFi, such as stablecoins and lending platforms, which have matured; the other is innovative applications, such as decentralized prediction markets and ZKID (Zero-Knowledge Proof Identity System).

"The development of DeFi cannot be ignored, but it needs to balance KYC and anti-money laundering requirements," Xiao Feng added at ETHShanghai. Through Zero-Knowledge Identity (ZK ID), users can prove their status as qualified investors without revealing all their privacy, enabling decentralized finance to better serve the global financial system.

Both Xiao Feng and Vitalik believe that the combination of financial and non-financial elements will drive the next wave of innovation. Vitalik particularly emphasized the importance of ZKID, which can prove certain key information without leaking all data, such as assessing a borrower's repayment ability in under-collateralized loans.

"In the future, many applications will have both financial and non-financial parts," Vitalik said, citing decentralized social platforms as a typical example.

From a broader perspective, Xiao Feng pointed out that every industrial revolution is accompanied by a financial revolution. AI and Crypto are considered the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will give rise to entirely new financial service models. In the future, entrepreneurs might use ZK identity and token mechanisms to raise startup capital globally, potentially replacing traditional VCs and becoming a new financial model in the digital era.

In response to the booming development of Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs), HashKey Group, where Xiao Feng is involved, officially launched its DAT fund strategy in October, calling it the "ETF moment of the Crypto era." This move further strengthens Ethereum's core position in institutional asset allocation.

Despite the leverage risks behind the DATs boom, Xiao Feng is confident about Ethereum's future. As the "digital twin" era fully arrives, Ethereum, with its technical architecture and application ecosystem, will continue to maintain its unshakable core position.