Ethereum Compared to ‘90s Amazon: 21Shares Predicts Potential

• According to 21 Shares analyst, Wall Street investors are unaware of Ethereum’s potential, similar to the early nineties’ perception of Amazon before it grew into a $2 trillion tech giant.
• Amazon began as a simple online bookstore, at the time, few could have predicted its evolution into a global e-commerce and cloud computing giant.

21Shares, an asset management company based in Zurich has drawn intriguing parallels between Ethereum and Amazon during the latter’s formative years in the 1990s. Wall Street investors remain largely unaware of Ethereum’s transformative potential, a sentiment echoed by Leena ElDeeb a research analyst at 21Shares. ElDeeb points out that Ethereum, despite its vast capabilities, is still underappreciated by the investment community. 

After approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission, trading for Ethereum ETFs began on July 23, 2024. The ETFs have seen modest inflows, especially when compared to the much larger interest in Bitcoin ETF which began trading in January 2024. The analysts added that Ethereum’s complexities are similar to those of Amazon when it was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994.

Federico Brokate, vice president and head of the U.S. business unit at 21Shares, elaborates on this analogy. He recalls Amazon’s origins as a simple online bookstore, noting that few could have predicted it would evolve into a global e-commerce and cloud-computing powerhouse. Similarly, Ethereum began as a platform for smart contracts but has expanded its offerings dramatically since its launch in 2015. Today, it supports decentralized finance (DeFi) applications worth over $140 billion.

Ethereum’s relevance is underscored by significant institutional interest, with major firms like BlackRock tokenizing over $533 million in money market funds on the Ethereum blockchain. Additionally, CNF reported that the Union Bank of Switzerland announced the launch of “UBS USD Money Market Investment Fund Token” (“uMINT”), a Money Market investment built on Ethereum distributed ledger technology.

Another notable company making moves on Ethereum is  Visa, the global leader in digital payments launched its Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), an innovative product designed to assist banks in creating fiat currencies on the Ethereum Blockchain. 

Is Ethereum a Rising Threat to AWS?

In the cloud computing arena, Ethereum poses a significant challenge to Amazon Web Services (AWS), outpacing competitors like Microsoft and Google. Both platforms can host websites and applications, but Ethereum’s decentralized nature distinguishes it from AWS, which is a centralized, publicly owned entity.

Launched in 2006, AWS manages its infrastructure and profits from service usage directly, Ethereum operates as an open-source protocol supported by a global network of miners. These participants contribute their computing power and earn rewards for their work, enabling a more equitable distribution of wealth compared to AWS, where earnings go solely to Amazon

Three years after Amazon’s launch, it had a market cap of  $1.44 B, as of November 2024 Amazon has a market cap of $2.081 Trillion USD. This makes Amazon the world’s 5th most valuable company by market cap. Meanwhile, Ethereum has a market capitalization of $ 297.44 billion at press time with each unit trading at $2471. 

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