Arthur Hayes Says Robinhood’s Ethereum Security-Layer Pick Could Lift Ether to $5,000: EastPoint: Seoul 2026

"Robinhood chose Ethereum as the security layer for its own blockchain. With Robinhood, a new narrative for Ethereum has begun."

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

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

With Robinhood changing course, other large institutions now have an easier path to choosing Ethereum as their base layer, he added. Hayes said that narrative could lift Ethereum to about $5,000 within roughly a year, implying nearly a doubling from its current level of about $2,650.

Hayes also discussed Ethena, the issuer of stablecoin USDe. USDe has grown rapidly to become one of the largest stablecoins by circulating supply, but the Ethena token has fallen, he said. 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 on crypto risk, he said.

Still, Hayes said the near-term outlook is not bleak. Bitcoin has recently risen quickly from $60,000 to $85,000, and basis yields are climbing again. That means the gap between yields available through Ethena and U.S. Treasury yields is widening.

USDe supply had been shrinking but is now expanding again, he added. If those two factors work together, they could create momentum for the Ethena token, now at about $0.27, to rise to $1.

On decentralized exchange Uniswap, Hayes said the protocol is moving toward using fees to return value to token investors. Uniswap is buying back tokens with protocol revenue and reducing supply, he said. The mechanism is similar to stock buybacks, and lower supply is a positive for token prices.

Those token buybacks are taking place alongside the broader rise in on-chain assets, he added. Uniswap is one of the core protocols used to execute on-chain trades as institutions tokenize assets.

Oh Yu-rim, Bloomingbit reporter / Lee Jun-hyung, Bloomingbit reporter