Ethereum is the implementation of the most ambitious hopes that people had for Bitcoin.

The idea of an internet of money: being implemented as a rich DeFi system with stablecoins, lending protocols, and decentralized exchanges built on the integrated digital consensus of Ethereum and its L2s.

And Ethereum defines DeFi. Two thirds of the value locked on DeFi across the crypto space is found on Ethereum and its L2s (source: https://defillama.com/chains), and that's when you include the heavy subsidization of DeFi on BSC by Binance, and the dubious ponzi DeFi apps on Tron. Excluding those, and Ethereum is nearly the entire DeFi space.

The idea of one hub chain securing thousands of sidechains: being implemented by Ethereum mainnet securing all L2s and making them interoperable with each other. (source: https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary)

The idea of stocks and bonds being represented as tokens and traded on the blockchain: implemented by the ERC20 and related token standards of the Ethereum techstrate. (source: BlackRock’s Tokenized Real World Assets on Ethereum Can Now Be Exchanged for USDC)

The idea of cryptographically enforced privacy on the blockchain: implemented by Tornado Cash on Ethereum.

The idea of limitless scalability: being implemented with zkRollups, data sharding, and EigenLayer's ETH restaking technology.

The idea of sound money: being implemented as EIP-1559 and Proof of Stake giving ETH ultrasound tokenomics to go along with being the core asset of the emerging global financial consensus.