According to PANews, Ethereum (ETH) was once considered a 'blue-chip asset' in the crypto market, with expectations that its price would reach new highs, potentially surpassing $10,000. However, since 2022, ETH's performance has been lackluster, raising questions about the future of Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum. Let's delve into the reasons behind this trend.
Over the past two years, significant upgrades to Ethereum generated high expectations, particularly regarding the 'deflationary' effect on ETH supply. Despite these upgrades, the market performance of ETH has been disappointing. Even with a series of expansions and upgrades, ETH has underperformed compared to Bitcoin (BTC) and other tokens like Solana.
The anticipated launch of an ETH ETF was expected to boost ETH prices, but the outcome was disappointing. Unlike the surge seen with the Bitcoin ETF launch, the ETH ETF saw capital outflows, partly due to the selling pressure from Grayscale's legacy products.
Ethereum's Merge and EIP-1559 successfully reduced ETH issuance, but the latest Dencun upgrade, while lowering the cost of writing data to the main chain, inadvertently reduced ETH's revenue sources, diminishing the token's appreciation potential.
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's founder, recently sold a portion of his ETH to support development. Although the sale volume was relatively small, it generated negative market sentiment. Some investors interpreted this as a lack of confidence in ETH, despite Vitalik's repeated statements that ETH's price is not his primary concern.
Emerging trends such as AI, real-world assets (RWA), and memecoins have largely bypassed Ethereum as their main platform. Many new AI projects like Fetch and TAO, and RWA projects have chosen more suitable independent networks and underlying architectures. In the memecoin sector, Solana has shown more impressive performance. This indicates that while Ethereum opened the door to decentralization, other networks are becoming the leaders in the latest narratives.
Currently, ETH remains a cornerstone of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, accounting for over 55% of the total value locked. However, with the proliferation of Layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions, Ethereum may face a future where its ecosystem thrives, but the token's value does not realize its full potential, similar to the $ATOM token in the Cosmos ecosystem.
In conclusion, while ETH's network utility and ecosystem position remain strong, recent performance has raised market concerns. Although ETH continues to lead the industry, it may gradually lose some dominance if it fails to adapt to emerging trends. Ethereum still holds a significant first-mover advantage in decentralization, but maintaining its core value will require finding a new balance between L2 development and other narrative waves.
