According to CoinDesk, crypto asset management firm Bitwise said in a report on Tuesday that Ethereum (ETH) appears to be less popular now, but its underperformance may reverse before the end of the year.
Bitwise notes that Ethereum’s price has changed little year-to-date, while Bitcoin (BTC) is up 38% and Solana’s SOL is up 31%. The report states that the reasons for Ethereum’s recent underperformance come from risks related to the November U.S. presidential election, increasing competition from Solana and other blockchains, challenged token economics, and U.S. Ethereum spot exchange trading The fund (ETF) has received mixed reactions since its launch.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. Bitwise points out that most stablecoins are issued on Ethereum, more than 60% of decentralized finance (DeFi) assets are locked on this blockchain, and the popular prediction market Polymarket is also on this Layer 1 On-chain settlement. Bitwise investment rises Matt Hougan writes:
"Ethereum has the most active developers, the most active users, and a market capitalization 5 times larger than its nearest competitor."
Hougan also said that Ethereum is "like the Microsoft of blockchain." Everyone wants to talk about newer companies and their game-changing technologies, such as Google, Slack and Zoom, "but Microsoft is still bigger than them." It’s even bigger in total.”
Bitwise’s report said that the challenge to Ethereum is not “existential” and that the market may re-evaluate the cryptocurrency as the U.S. election approaches. “It looks like a potential contrarian bet before the end of the year.”
