Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research, said that Ether may not be the wisest investment choice for the 2025 price surge, as this asset could generate much lower returns than Bitcoin.
Other analysts said they are waiting for more confirmation from the price chart to see which way the price will go.
Thielen said in the December 30 market report that: "While we cannot rule out the possibility of new catalysts, we would not be surprised if Ethereum struggles to generate a meaningful price surge in 2025".
Analyst: Ether is a "poor" investment for the medium term
Thielen said: "While we appreciate the volatility of Ethereum, we believe it remains a poor investment in the medium term and expect ETH to continue underperforming BTC in 2025".
Therefore, our stance on Ethereum remains clear: "avoid".
Thielen said one of the most important metrics to watch in 2025 will be the trend of active validators. However, he noted that the growth rate of validators has turned negative, declining about 1% in the past 30 days, raising concerns about the increasing risk of more validators leaving the network.
Thielen said unstaking appears "rational" as he believes Ethereum lacks "real demand" beyond staking.
Others may not agree with that statement.
Attestant's Chief Business Officer, Tim Lowe, recently said that Ether demand could easily increase through savvy marketing and a unified value proposition, which would naturally attract more investors over time.
Lowe sees diversification away from Bitcoin as the main catalyst for Ethereum.
Ether underperforms Bitcoin
While Bitcoin has gained 121.4% since January 1, 2024, Ether has achieved a 46.3% profit in the same period, according to CoinMarketCap data.
On January 11, 2024, the first Bitcoin ETFs in the US were launched and met strong demand, helping push Bitcoin to new highs within two months. When US Ether ETFs launched in July, demand dropped significantly, leading to a more pessimistic outlook on this asset.
Bitcoin ETFs saw inflows of $35.3 billion in the year, while Ether ETFs reached $2.66 billion.
Thielen said the Duncan upgrade in March — which helped reduce network gas fees and allow the network to process more transactions — "came six months too late". It missed the meme coin price surge peak and the market shifted to the "more cost-effective" Solana.
He is also skeptical about the Pectra upgrade, expected to be introduced in early 2025.
Thielen said: "Out of 19 upgrades so far, only two have had a significant positive impact on price, and even those occurred during a Bitcoin bull market".
He added: "The three main Ethereum catalysts in 2024 largely saw sharp price declines, generally not delivering much value".
Thielen said Ether may continue to underperform Bitcoin in 2025, although other crypto analysts believe Ether's price remains uncertain and could move in any direction.
MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe has a more optimistic view on Ether and said this coin is showing signs of outperforming Bitcoin in January 2025.
In a post on X on December 24, Van de Poppe said he "would not be surprised if ETH/BTC breaks above 0.04 in January".
At the time of writing, the ETH/BTC ratio - an indicator of Ether's relative strength compared to Bitcoin - is 0.03571, according to TradingView data.
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