As Ethereum nears its 10th anniversary, blockchain company Consensys is proposing a new way to think about the network’s role in the global economy: as critical infrastructure for what it calls a “trustware” era.
According to Consensys, Ethereum is evolving beyond a smart contract platform into a foundational layer for verifiable, programmable trust in financial systems and beyond.
While the concept remains speculative, Consensys points to Ethereum’s growing share of tokenized assets, stablecoins and decentralized finance as early signals of that shift, further predicting that demand for Ether (ETH) could rise sharply in the coming years.
Jason Linehan, chief strategy officer at Consensys, spoke to Cointelegraph about the network’s “cost-to-corrupt” model, a framework he says could help drive ETH to new highs.
Trustware: Ethereum’s next identity
While not often discussed or measured, trust is behind nearly every economic interaction. According to Consensys, the global economy spends over $9.3 trillion annually on trust infrastructure in insurance, legal systems, auditors, compliance, notaries and go-betweens.
The digital era has enabled a new form of trust — borderless, transparent and enforced by code, allowing strangers to transact with mathematical certainty. Consensys calls this “trustware.”
“Trustware is a new way to talk about the incredible value that Ethereum is already bringing to the economy,” Linehan told Cointelegraph. “Value that has been built block by block over the past 10 years through the effort of organizations like the Ethereum Foundation, Consensys, and the global Ethereum developer community.”
As traditional financial institutions recognize the efficiency and value of this type of trust infrastructure, Consensys argues that demand for Ethereum will rise accordingly, driving long-term growth in the value of ETH.
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How Trustware reshapes Ethereum’s value proposition
The cost-to-corrupt model is a valuation framework that links the market value of ETH to the security required to protect the economic activity on Ethereum. It operates on a simple premise: The more value Ethereum secures, in the form of stablecoins and other DeFi assets, the more expensive it must be to attack the network.
Using a “cost-to-corrupt” model, Consensys predicts the price of ETH to hit $4,900 by the end of 2025 and $15,800 by 2028. Linehan said the model assumes $1 trillion value in stablecoins, $500 billion in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), and $300 billion in total value locked (TVL) by 2028, figures he considers conservative.
“There are credible projections of $2 trillion in stablecoins and up to $16 trillion in RWAs by 2028 or 2030,” he said, noting Ethereum’s current dominance in both asset classes.
The report also suggests that investors in ETH are still early stages. Currently, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies represents 0.3% of global wealth, while stablecoin volume is 0.1% of foreign exchange.
As of May 31, Ethereum had secured $220 billion in High-Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) onchain, according to Consensys, significantly outpacing Solana’s $20.3 billion and Avalanche’s $3.7 billion, despite these networks growth over the past years.
“The future will not look like the past… it’s going to be an economy like we’ve never seen, and it will blow the doors off of what we have today. Ethereum makes it possible,” said Linehan.
Atheneum’s architecture of safety and scale
As Ethereum nears its 10th anniversary, it boasts 21 network upgrades and a legacy of foundational innovations, including smart contracts, NFTs, tokens, DeFi, DAOs, oracles, rollups, stablecoins, proof-of-stake and RWAs — all pioneered on its platform.
Its architecture is powered by 1,056,000 validators across 84 countries. Consensys says that while other blockchains may attract specific sectors, like gaming and memecoins, where trustware is less critical, Ethereum is still a prime choice for institutional investors managing billions in global capital.
“Agentic finance will mean tokenized RWAs and all other asset classes will be accessed and transacted in thousands of times a second, 24/7/365, by the most sophisticated algorithms we can imagine,” he said.
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