Original text: Tyler
Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews
One of the most promising blockchains in the world has faced challenges during the peak of the cryptocurrency market boom. Over the past few years, the Ethereum community has undergone severe tests. In 2024, the price of Bitcoin rose from $39,000 to $106,000 (an increase of 2.7 times), while Ethereum rose from $2,200 to $4,000 (an increase of 1.8 times). The ETH/BTC ratio is at its lowest level since the collapse of the ICO bubble in 2018.
Historical ETH/BTC ratio (2016-2025)
Market sentiment and Ethereum's positioning
The market is currently more inclined towards short-term speculative trading rather than long-term investment, with scams rampant and speculators being idolized. The cyclical nature of the cryptocurrency market means that when market sentiment becomes overly pessimistic, the fundamentals will ultimately drive the trend. Although the mood on Crypto Twitter is gloomy, the atmosphere in the Ethereum ecosystem is improving, and some positive changes are brewing.
Recently, some members of the Ethereum community have launched the ETHDenver brand hackathon, hoping to reshape Ethereum's market image through crowdsourced marketing concepts and drive grassroots promotion of the ecosystem. This initiative has led to the emergence of an Ethereum marketing group on Telegram, aiming to address the lack of marketing efforts for Ethereum.
From first principles, the core value of blockchain lies in decentralization, otherwise its efficiency would not exceed that of centralized databases. The appeal of blockchain lies in its immutability, trusted neutrality, unstoppability, and censorship resistance, and these characteristics depend on the trade-offs in the degree of decentralization.
The Scalability Trilemma, which was a hot topic of discussion from 2016 to 2020, is now rarely mentioned.
This theory states that among the three aspects of scalability, security, and decentralization, only two can be achieved simultaneously. Most competing L1 blockchains have sacrificed decentralization and security to improve scalability, in other words, they have become more centralized.
In comparison, Ethereum has persisted in decentralization, which seems to be a wise choice overall. Although the market currently does not value decentralization, users clearly appreciate this aspect. For example, in terms of stablecoin TVL, Ethereum still far exceeds Solana.
Rollup solutions can 100% inherit Ethereum's underlying security and scale the network through L2 or economic zones. Bitcoin plans to expand through Rollup solutions such as BitVM and BitVM2, while Ethereum's expansion path is more clear. If Solana reaches its maximum capacity at the base layer, they will also need to use L2 for expansion.
Ethereum represents all crypto-punks, it represents a vision that is faithful to the mission rather than a speculative casino.
How can Ethereum win?
What are the current problems facing Ethereum? If its mission is so great, why is it not reflected in the price? The current challenge for Ethereum is how to interact with those cryptocurrency areas (such as attention economy, memes, aggressive marketing, etc.) that it has traditionally overlooked, while upholding its principles.
After the ICO bubble, Ethereum's leadership can understandably distance itself from anything that might damage its reputation. The focus shifted to "serious" use cases like DeFi, while cultural phenomena like memes were largely ignored and rejected. But in this process, Ethereum lost its cultural ground, which was occupied by blockchains like Solana that embraced these elements.
Ethereum can more actively shape its own culture and promote the development of projects that align with its values. It's time to make Ethereum "cool" again.
1. Making Ethereum "cool" again
Ethereum needs to re-embrace the crypto-punk culture and recapture its early rebellious spirit. Vitalik's best move was using the Milady avatar, which was a highly symbolic gesture. The Milady organization, Remilia, dominates the crypto Twitter culture, advocating for the crypto-punk endgame and recognizing that cryptocurrencies are not just about technology - they are a combination of politics, economics, computer science, memetics, philosophy, governance, and art. Miladys are both cool and avant-garde, breaking the boundaries of social acceptability in the name of defending online freedoms (such as freedom of speech).
The political stance of Ethereum's leadership is often criticized as seemingly disconnected from user needs. Once a company loses user resonance, it becomes difficult to succeed.
Why can subcultures like Milady have greater influence than Ethereum itself? The core issue is that Ethereum lacks strong cultural shaping and leadership, and is too passive. The best founders are fighting alongside users, deeply understanding their pain points.
One just needs to study how @charlottefang77 actively conveys the dynasty mindset (with the aim of elevating community status and reinforcing values) and creates dialogues that can be understood by all Milady community members, regardless of their status, intelligence, or technical background. The ability to communicate with all levels of the community is powerful.
In the past, the Ethereum Foundation has even failed to actively use the leading DeFi protocols, showing its lag in ecosystem building. Rather than political discussions, Ethereum should return to the crypto-punk ideology and revive the rebellious spirit of the early cryptocurrency era. This is not just a technological revolution, but also requires cultural and philosophical support for Ethereum to truly win the future.
Solana's market recognition is due to its clear identity and vision: fast and cheap. They embrace KOLs and meme culture, dare to promote themselves/their products/ideas, and strive to gain market share. In the current environment, "either lead the discourse or be led by it", and the best way is to defeat competitors with better ideas.
Ethereum cannot be afraid of competition, but should fully support the excellent projects and communities on the chain, whether they are meme coins, DeFi applications, or NFT projects - the customer is always right.
2. Embracing modern media and the power of memes
Ethereum has few allies in the media and social platforms, which are becoming increasingly important. Ethereum has not yet formed a systematic media cooperation strategy, while Solana has actively embraced the media and KOLs. For example, @DegenerateNews appears to be a neutral news account, but it constantly publishes positive news about Solana. Additionally, Blockworks also seems to be more biased towards Solana. This strategy has been successful for Solana, but detrimental to Ethereum.
The Ethereum community is migrating to Farcaster, which is a long-term plan, but in the short term it has led to a decline in influence on X (Twitter). Farcaster has not yet attracted mainstream users, so Ethereum still needs to prioritize maintaining its discourse position on X, otherwise its influence will further decline.
3. Clarifying the competitive landscape
Ethereum not only faces competition from Solana, but also from Bitcoin L2. Bitcoin emphasizes its monetary properties, Solana emphasizes its technical advantages, so what is Ethereum's positioning?
In fact, Ethereum's core value proposition - decentralization - still has a strong advantage, but the market's understanding of it is not clear enough. Solana is favored for its excellent user experience, mainly due to two factors:
- The Phantom wallet is widely acclaimed as the most user-friendly wallet.
- Solana has only one chain, so users do not need to bridge assets between multiple L2s.
In comparison, the concept of Account Abstraction in Ethereum has been proposed for years, but no wallet has truly shielded L2 differences and allowed seamless circulation of USDC/USDT across different L2s. If Ethereum wants to improve the user experience, it must simplify L2 interactions and make the experience closer to the mainnet.
4. Strengthen Ecosystem Collaboration
Does Ethereum have a truly effective incubator? Although ConsenSys is seen as a supporter of the Ethereum ecosystem, it has not been able to drive project development in a bottom-up manner. In contrast, the DeFi Alliance's support for Solana is more systematic. So how can Ethereum provide support for potential projects? If no organization takes on this responsibility, decentralization may become a disadvantage.
5. Establish a Unified Information Hub
The Ethereum website is actually quite good, but ironically, this is the problem. In an era where social media dominates information dissemination, it seems foolish to expect users to browse FAQs. Ethereum needs a unified information platform, such as a decentralized app store, and ensure that this information is disseminated on social platforms to directly reach users.
In the long run, the ideal state is for users to use Ethereum seamlessly, like the infrastructure of the Internet, but waiting for companies like Apple to integrate it is not the best solution, and Ethereum needs to take the initiative.
Ethereum Brand Building
The Ethereum community needs a simple sentence to describe Ethereum's functionality. In information dissemination, Memes play a decisive role. Just like the Meme of Bitcoin as "digital gold", people can immediately understand its meaning. The answer to this question will guide the development direction of the Ethereum brand hackathon. Here are some evaluations of brand slogans:
- "Web1: Read, Web2: Write, Web3: Own" - a good starting point, but too long.
- "The World Computer" - the concept is not intuitive enough and may not resonate, as people usually understand computers as the laptops or desktops in front of them, and "the world computer" concept is difficult to understand: is it just a particularly large computer?
- "Digital Oil" - although it seems to be imitating "digital gold", it does convey the function of ETH well, indicating that the value of ETH comes from its utility and its status as the currency of the digital economy, but it is too dependent on the Bitcoin framework and may be difficult to become the dominant Meme.
- "The Internet of Money" - the concept of the Internet of Things mainly resonates with engineers, but is too abstract for ordinary users to understand.
- "The People's Internet" - the concept is good, but still too abstract.
- "Incentivized Open-Source Software" - this Meme is most suitable for VCs and investors who understand that open-source software is changing the world, but need a model to understand how tokens and cryptocurrencies fit into it. Ordinary users may find it difficult to resonate.
- "The Global Settlement Layer" - may be suitable for traders and funds, but difficult to popularize.
- "Ethereum - The Internet You Can Own" - this statement has the most potential. It meets all the requirements: it explains the value proposition, is easy to understand, and can generate widespread resonance. People understand the Internet, know that the world's largest tech companies are very valuable, and wonder what it would be like if they could own the Internet itself and buy its "shares". The Internet is becoming stronger and more ubiquitous every year. "Ethereum - The Internet You Can Own" tries to strike a balance between promoting the technology and the ETH asset.
Considerations for Redesigning the Logo
1. Be careful when using "≡thereum", as most ordinary users will read it directly as "thereum", e.g. "Built on ≡thereum" may cause confusion;
2. Avoid being too "cyberpunk" to avoid alienating ordinary users
3. Do not be too "awakened", as Ethereum is more focused on value delivery and technical capabilities rather than social ideology.
Lessons from Intel Inside: Ethereum's Brand and Marketing Strategy
The success of the Intel Inside campaign was not just due to branding, but also the subsequent marketing strategy. To achieve similar success in Ethereum's brand building, both brand building and marketing must be considered.
The core of the Intel Inside program was to collaborate with computer manufacturers (OEMs) to have them display the Intel Inside logo on their products, signaling to consumers that the device uses high-quality, cutting-edge processors. Intel not only provided the logo, but also used subsidies to incentivize manufacturers to adopt this branding strategy. By 1992, over 500 manufacturers had joined the program, and 70% of related ads displayed the Intel Inside logo. By 2001, Intel was investing $1.5 billion (equivalent to $26.9 billion today) annually in the program, deeply embedding the brand in consumers' minds.
Notably, Intel employed strict brand management mechanisms, requiring all partners' ads to comply with brand standards, even having a 100-page brand usage guideline. Any violations would result in the withdrawal of subsidies or even the loss of partnership qualifications. This decisive marketing strategy made Intel an industry benchmark and ensured its brand dominance in consumers' minds.
Ethereum's Brand Strategy Considerations
If the Intel Inside model is applied to the Ethereum ecosystem, DApps would be equivalent to OEMs, and Ethereum would be equivalent to Intel's chips. To expand brand influence, Ethereum may need to invest resources on a similar scale to Intel and adopt more forceful execution strategies.
A key question is: If Intel would not subsidize OEMs that also use competing chips, should Ethereum fund applications that support multiple chains?
Currently, long-time Ethereum allies like MakerDAO/Sky, Uniswap, and Aave have all adopted multi-chain deployment strategies. Does this mean they need to be more "Ethereum-aligned" in brand partnership programs? If so, how should this alignment be defined? These issues require in-depth community discussion and consensus.
ETHDenver Brand Hackathon Submission
In this brand hackathon, the team proposed a plan to design a brand logo similar to Intel Inside, combined with a marketing campaign.
- The logo can serve as a brand asset, requiring applications to prominently display it on the UI in exchange for the program's support.
- The core message is: the application is built on Ethereum and inherits Ethereum's decentralized trust attributes.
- The logo design balances technical and asset attributes, retaining the classic Ethereum visual elements while incorporating one of the most powerful ETH narratives - "The Internet You Can Own", and adding "Powered by Ethereum" to strengthen the brand communication.
Designed by @pdes_igns
In addition, the marketing campaign also requires a corresponding organizational structure, such as an accelerator, alliance, or dedicated BD team, to ensure the execution power of the promotion plan. Ethereum can learn from Intel's cooperation model, providing resource support while establishing clear admission standards to avoid dilution of brand assets.
Conclusion
The most important revelation is that Ethereum needs to take practical and feasible branding and promotion measures, and promote a unified marketing plan across the entire ecosystem. Otherwise, DApps may become self-reliant and even depart from Ethereum after reaching a certain stage of development, thereby weakening its ecosystem value. Ethereum should take the initiative to encourage projects within the ecosystem to maintain a consistent vision, rather than relying on the market's spontaneous alignment.
In history, the once-dominant social media giant Myspace has been eliminated, and the once-popular Bored Ape has also gradually lost market enthusiasm. The establishment of a millennium dynasty is inseparable from the support of the tribes. It's time for Ethereum to show its strength.
