Since the beginning of the year, Ethereum's performance has lagged behind most mainstream currencies, rising only 52.8%, compared to Bitcoin's 127.7%, SOL's 80.7%, and XRP's 273.3%.

However, many analysts remain optimistic about Ethereum and expect that with regulatory improvements, significant network upgrades, and the booming development of mainstream narratives such as stablecoins and RWA, next year will be Ethereum's year.

Improved regulatory environment benefits DeFi and DePIN.

Trump's successful election as President of the United States was due to his repeated friendly commitments to cryptocurrencies during the campaign, along with his family's establishment of a DeFi project and the nomination of several cryptocurrency supporters to key government positions such as the SEC Chairman, leading to high market expectations for improvements in cryptocurrency regulation after he takes office.

Saul Rejwan, managing partner of crypto venture capital firm Masterkey, stated:

The Trump administration and a more friendly SEC will benefit Ethereum and more 'compliant' crypto projects, especially in the DeFi and DePIN fields.

He pointed out: 'In a more favorable regulatory environment, DeFi projects on Ethereum will thrive, and sectors like restaking can attract a large number of institutional investors with just a little regulatory support.'

He added that the new leadership is expected to lower market entry barriers, creating a more favorable environment for early crypto entrepreneurs and resilient businesses to innovate and grow.

The Pectra upgrade improves user experience.

At the same time, Ethereum supporters are looking forward to a major upgrade called the Pectra upgrade. Gaia Regis, co-founder and CEO of the staking platform Byzantine, stated that the Pectra upgrade will fundamentally change the way the Ethereum security layer operates.

She pointed out that the current driving force for Ethereum staking mainly comes from liquidity demand. Essentially, many ETH holders want to participate in staking. This is usually a good thing, as more nodes mean more decentralization and higher security. However, Ethereum's scale is now very large—communication between more than 1 million validators is starting to slow down the network's operation.

'The solution proposed by Pectra is to increase the maximum effective balance of validators from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, which will significantly reduce the required number of validators, thereby alleviating network pressure.'

Reduced pressure means faster network operation, providing a better experience for Ethereum users.

She added: 'This improvement will lower the cost of participation in staking, attracting more people to join staking, but it will also gradually reduce staking yields over time. Therefore, we are very optimistic about restaking. Many people will want to enhance their staking returns by simultaneously protecting other networks.'

Kain Warwick, founder of Infinex, stated that the improvements in user experience brought by Ethereum improvement proposals and network upgrades will be a key turning point for the price trends of Ethereum and ETH.

By 2025, I believe that account abstraction technology will advance further, L2 interoperability will significantly improve, and the user experience between L2s will also see great improvements.

The flourishing of stablecoins, tokenization, and AI agents.

Matt Houghan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise, stated that Ethereum has three major advantages as it moves towards 2025 and expects this asset to thrive in the new year.

Ethereum is at the core of three major trends shaping the cryptocurrency market in 2025: stablecoins, tokenization, and AI Agents. In these three areas, Ethereum holds a dominant market share.

He added:

'I believe that the heat brought by these three fields will affect ETH, making it the 'comeback star' of 2025. You can already see signs from the recent strong performance and net inflows of ETF funds.'

Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store, also tweeted on December 20 that the net inflow into Ethereum ETFs has reached parity with gold ETFs, while he expects the inflow to begin accelerating.

ETH's performance will surpass Bitcoin.

Looking ahead to Ethereum's future market. Michael van de Poppe, founder of MN Capital, stated yesterday (24th): 'If the $ETH / $BTC exchange rate breaks 0.04 in January, I wouldn't be surprised at all.' He expects:

In January 2025, more funds will flow into Ethereum, while Bitcoin may face capital outflows, leading to a consolidation phase for Bitcoin prices. This situation could spark a 'bull market for altcoins within the Ethereum ecosystem.'

This view aligns with Benjamin Cowen, founder of Into The Cryptoverse, who mentioned in a post on December 4 that he believes 'the decline in the ETH/BTC exchange rate has ended or is nearing its end, and we should see an upward trend in the next 6 to 12 months.'

As of the deadline, the ETH/BTC exchange rate is temporarily reported at 0.03549, up 0.31% in the past 24 hours.