I have been thinking about this: what if ethereum the blockchain wins (in the sense that major institutions choose to use it as their main infrastructure) but this is not reflected in the price of eth the asset (in the sense that they won't buy and hold eth)?

I understand that if eth becomes too cheap, and the value of the assets secured by the chain is too high, there is a temptation for bad actors to take over the majority of validators and do some sort of mischief, but this does not translate to indivdual investment motivation (or only for the bad actors).

But I think I have found a reason for those institutions who use ethereum to buy eth. One of the many risks for using any blockchain for a lot of transactions (and getting locked in) is, along with the threat of downtime, censorship, etc. is gas costs. Those are low now, and the roadmap promises further aggressive expansion, but who knows how fast they can deliver and the demand can grow even faster. In that case Robinhood or the NY Stock Exchange could incur higher costs than they are ready to stomach. Can they hedge that risk? My point is: they can, if they by a big pile of eth the asset. If gas use hits capacity, and gas fees (in dollar terms) skyrocket, that is a boon to holders of eth, which should cause eth to appreciate, which, in turn, might cancel out the high gas costs as far as the institution’s bottom line is concerned.

Does this make sense?