Author: Azuma, Odaily
On December 29, Eugene Ng Ah Sio, a highly influential trader in the cryptocurrency community, published his outlook and expectations for the first quarter of 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 preference (especially WLFI's massive buying of the Ethereum ecosystem); and the development status of the Base ecosystem. He then reiterated that since Trump's election, the capital inflow into Ethereum spot ETFs has undergone a 180-degree turnaround.
ETF Capital Movements: Is Ethereum More Favored?
Eugene's claims are not exaggerated. SoSoValue data shows that since Trump's victory on November 6, the capital inflow into Ethereum spot ETFs has grown significantly, with the growth trend even surpassing that of Bitcoin spot ETFs during the same period.
This trend has become even more apparent in late December.
SoSoValue data shows that in the last trading week (December 23 to December 27, Eastern Time), Ethereum spot ETFs had a net inflow of $349 million, while Bitcoin spot ETFs had a net outflow of $388 million - this significant difference in capital movements may suggest better expectations for the future of ETH.
As of the time of writing, the official ETF inflow/outflow data for this Monday has not been fully published yet, but according to on-chain monitoring by Lookonchain, yesterday ten US Bitcoin ETFs had a net outflow of 3,000 BTC ($275.59 million), while nine Ethereum ETFs had a net inflow of 16,359 ETH ($54.33 million), and the trend seems to remain unchanged.
The Trump Concept Combo
In addition to the flow data of ETFs, another factor supporting the expectations for ETH is the continuous position-building by the Trump family project WLFI.
Over the past period, WLFI has successively bought tokens such as AAVE, LINK, ENA, and ONDO from the Ethereum ecosystem, but the largest holding of the project is still ETH.
Although this is also related to the fact that WIFI itself is deployed on the Ethereum ecosystem, the statement "the president has boarded, what are you still hesitating about" still has a strong FOMO effect.
Reviewing Historical Data, Will the Script Repeat?
Coinglass data shows that in the first quarter of the new year after the US elections and Bitcoin halving cycles, ETH has performed the best, especially in the first quarters of 2017 and 2021, when ETH rose 518% and 161% respectively, even surpassing the returns of BTC in those two quarters (11.9%, 103.2%).
If history repeats itself, ETH may see a significant rise in Q1 next year.
Potential Beta Choices
If ETH does rise as expected, some Ethereum ecosystem tokens may become higher risk/return Beta choices, such as:
- Trump concept token combo: AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO;
- Grayscale Top 20 choices: LINK, UNI, AAVE, ENA, OP, LDO;
- ETF staking potential upside: LDO, EIGEN, RPL, SSV;
- Ethereum ecosystem leading AI concepts: VIRTUAL, GAME, AIXBT;
Odaily Note: The above tokens are only listed for specific sectors and concepts, and do not constitute investment advice.
Opposing Views
Although many well-known investors/traders, including Eugene, have openly expressed their bullishness on ETH, there are also voices that hold a pessimistic view on the future performance of ETH.
Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, has painted a more pessimistic scenario, predicting that ETH will continue to underperform and will not be able to set new historical highs under the "hawkish" macroeconomic environment in 2025: "We expect a more conservative outlook for ETH in 2025. Unlike the previous years, the initial hawkish policies may be challenged by weakening liquidity tailwinds."
In this period of volatile market conditions, the forecasts given by various parties are merely "partial conclusions" based on the conditions and indicators they focus on, and no one can predict the future. Everyone should remember to DYOR before taking any action.
