Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author: Azuma (@azuma_eth)
On December 29, Eugene Ng Ah Sio, a highly influential trader in the cryptocurrency community, released his outlook and expectations for the first quarter of 2025 on X, predicting that ETH will become 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 WLF’s massive purchase of the Ethereum ecosystem); and the development of the Base ecosystem. He then wrote another article emphasizing that since Trump’s election, the inflow of funds into the Ethereum spot ETF has undergone a 180-degree turn.
ETF fund movement: Is Ethereum viewed more favorably?
Eugene did not exaggerate; SoSoValue data shows that since Trump's victory on November 6, the inflow of capital into spot Ethereum ETFs has increased significantly, with the growth trend even surpassing that of Bitcoin spot ETFs during the same period.
As we enter late December, this trend has become even more apparent.
SoSoValue data shows that during the last trading week (Eastern Time December 23 to December 27), the Ethereum spot ETF had a net inflow of $349 million; meanwhile, the Bitcoin spot ETF experienced a net outflow of $388 million — this significant difference in fund movement may indicate better expectations for ETH in the future.
As of the time of writing, the official ETF inflow/outflow data for this Monday has not been fully published, but according to on-chain monitoring by Lookonchain, yesterday ten U.S. Bitcoin ETFs had a net outflow of 3,000 BTC ($275.59 million); nine Ethereum ETFs had a net inflow of 16,359 ETH ($54.33 million), and the trend seems to remain unchanged.
Trump concept full package
In addition to the liquidity data from ETFs, another reason supporting ETH expectations is the continued accumulation by the Trump family project WLFI.
In recent times, WLFI has successively purchased several Ethereum ecosystem tokens such as AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO, but the largest holding of the project remains ETH.
Although this is somewhat related to the fact that WIFI itself is deployed in the Ethereum ecosystem, the phrase 'The president has already boarded, what are you still hesitating about?' 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 after historical U.S. elections and Bitcoin halving cycles, ETH performed best, especially in the first quarters of 2017 and 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 next year.
Potential beta choices
If ETH can indeed rise as hoped, some Ethereum ecosystem tokens may become higher-risk/higher-reward beta choices, such as:
Trump concept coin combination: AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO;
Grayscale Top 20 choices: LINK, UNI, AAVE, ENA, OP, LDO;
Potential benefits from ETF staking expectations: LDO, EIGEN, RPL, SSV;
Top AI concepts in the Ethereum ecosystem: VIRTUAL, GAME, AIXBT;
Odaily note: The above tokens are only examples from specific sectors and concepts, and do not constitute investment advice.
Opposing viewpoint
Although several well-known investors/traders, including Eugene, have clearly been bullish on ETH, there are also voices holding a pessimistic view on ETH's future performance.
Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, painted a more pessimistic scenario, predicting that ETH will continue to underperform and will not reach a historical high in a 'hawkish' macro environment in 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 periods of extreme market volatility, the predictions made by various parties are merely 'one-sided conclusions' based on their respective conditions and indicators; no one can predict the future. Everyone must remember to DYOR before taking action.
