Recently, when talking about Ethereum, many people say "Ethereum is finished," somewhat similar to those who were pessimistic about Amazon back in the day. In fact, although the spot ETF has been listed, the market reaction has been tepid, and the price hasn't really improved, it feels like no one truly cares. Most investors are still watching from the sidelines, and not many believe it will have a major breakthrough in the future, which is particularly reminiscent of when Amazon was still just selling books. Who would have thought it would later become a global e-commerce and cloud computing giant?
Another point that everyone is discussing is that Ethereum is being "drained" by its L2s. Currently, L2s account for most of the trading revenue, leaving the mainnet with only a small portion. Matthew Sigel, the research director at VanEck, even directly lowered Ethereum's target price for 2030 by 67%, cutting it from the original $22,000 down to just $7,334, which is quite a cold shower.
Moreover, Ethereum has recently faced inflation issues. According to data from Ultra Sound Money, in the past 30 days, the amount of ETH burned by Ethereum has been less than what has been newly added, and the overall supply is still increasing. If this trend continues, it may affect the long-term security of Ethereum, because once supply exceeds demand, the value of ETH is bound to be impacted.
However, some people still hold a positive view of Ethereum, saying it’s like Amazon when it was just a bookstore, and that everyone hasn’t truly realized its potential. Indeed, Ethereum has always been centered around smart contracts, and now it supports decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoins, tokenized assets, and so on; the future application scenarios should continue to increase.
Overall, Ethereum faces significant challenges, especially with the L2 diversion, declining gas fees, and ETH inflation issues, but we still can't draw a definite conclusion. Maybe as time goes on and the market matures, we will see its outcome, which may be that it really is beyond saving! 😂
