Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily
On December 29, influential trader Eugene Ng Ah Sio in the cryptocurrency community posted on X his outlook and expectations for Q1 2025, predicting that ETH will be the best-performing mainstream token in the next quarter.
Eugene first mentioned three reasons for being bullish on ETH: technical trends; Trump's favor (especially the large purchases of Ethereum ecosystem by WLFI); and the development status of the Base ecosystem. He then reiterated that since Trump's election, the fund inflow situation of Ethereum spot ETFs has undergone a 180-degree turnaround.
ETF fund trends: Is Ethereum more favored?
Eugene did not exaggerate; SoSoValue data shows that since November 6, when Trump was elected, the inflow situation of spot Ethereum ETFs has significantly increased, and the growth trend even surpasses that of Bitcoin spot ETFs.
Entering late December, this trend has become even more apparent.
SoSoValue data shows that last week (Eastern US time from December 23 to December 27), Ethereum spot ETFs had a net inflow of 349 million USD; during the same period, Bitcoin spot ETFs had a net outflow of 388 million USD - the significant difference in this fund movement may indicate better expectations for ETH in the future.
As of the time of writing, the official ETF inflow/outflow data from this Monday has not been fully released, but according to on-chain monitoring by Lookonchain, yesterday saw a net outflow of 3000 BTC (275.59 million USD) from ten US Bitcoin ETFs; nine Ethereum ETFs saw a net inflow of 16359 ETH (54.33 million USD), and the trend seems to remain unchanged.
Trump concept family pack
In addition to the liquidity data of ETFs, another reason supporting the expectations for ETH is the continuous accumulation by the Trump family project WLFI.
In the past period, WLFI has successively purchased several Ethereum ecosystem tokens such as AAVE, LINK, ENA, and ONDO, but the largest holding of the project remains ETH.
Although this is somewhat related to the fact that WIFI is deployed in the Ethereum ecosystem, the phrase 'the president is on board, what are you still hesitating for?' still has a strong FOMO effect.
Looking back at historical data, will the script repeat?
Coinglass data shows that in the first quarter of the new year following past US elections and Bitcoin halving cycles, ETH performed the best, particularly in Q1 of 2017 and Q1 of 2021, where ETH rose by 518% and 161% respectively, even surpassing BTC's returns in those two quarters (11.9%, 103.2%).
If history repeats itself, ETH may experience significant growth in Q1 of next year.
Potential Beta selection
If ETH can rise as hoped, some Ethereum ecosystem tokens may become higher risk/reward Beta selections, such as:
Trump concept coin combination: AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO;
Grayscale Top 20 selection: LINK, UNI, AAVE, ENA, OP, LDO;
ETF staking expectations potential benefits: LDO, EIGEN, RPL, SSV;
Leading AI concepts in the Ethereum ecosystem: VIRTUAL, GAME, AIXBT;
Note: The above tokens are only examples from specific sectors and concepts and do not constitute investment advice.
Counterpoint
Although several well-known investors/traders, including Eugene, have openly expressed bullish views on ETH, there are also voices holding a pessimistic attitude towards ETH's future performance.
Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, painted a more pessimistic scenario, predicting that ETH will continue to perform poorly and will not reach new historical highs in the 'hawkish' macro environment of 2025: 'We expect a more conservative outlook for ETH in 2025. Unlike previous years, the initial hawkish policies may be tested by weakening liquidity tailwinds.'
During the period of severe market fluctuations, the forecasts provided by various parties are merely 'one-sided conclusions' based on the conditions and indicators they focus on. No one can predict the future, so please remember to DYOR before making any moves.
