Over the past three months, Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency globally, has plummeted 40% in price, performing worse than Bitcoin, Solana, and Cardano, highlighting its falling from grace.
According to the Financial Times report, Carol Alexander, a finance professor at Sussex University, analyzed that the entire DeFi vision now seems more distant than a year ago, with disillusionment growing as perspectives become clearer.
The recent meme coin craze has reduced Ethereum's attention, with tokens promoted by US President Trump and Argentina's President Milei using Solana. In the past six months, Solana's meme coin transactions have generated $721 million in transaction fees for its users, nearly approaching Ethereum's $824 million.
Kaiko research analyst Adam McCarthy stated that Ethereum has lost its appeal for most people, and impressive engineering achievements cannot generate excitement when so many competitors are vying for attention. In contrast, Bitcoin's digital gold narrative firmly captures people's interest, while Ethereum has failed in its native domain, and ETF flows indicate its lack of broad appeal.
Carol Alexander pointed out that many DeFi project activities on Ethereum have been exaggerated, with many transactions being repeatedly calculated, and the Ethereum Foundation responsible for development is fragmenting, with developers arguing about the project's future direction, making the decision-making process somewhat chaotic.
Ethereum in Midlife Crisis
Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered's digital assets research head, also believes Ethereum is experiencing a "midlife crisis" as it encounters difficulties while attempting technical upgrades to attract broader users.
Ethereum developers have been working to improve network speed and efficiency by delegating transaction processing to third parties, but this shifts fees to Layer 2 networks, causing Ethereum to lose most of its value. Geoff Kendrick directly states that this decision undoubtedly gives away value, essentially commodifying itself.
Ethereum supporters argue that it has the most mature developer community, with high-profile promoters including co-founder Vitalik Buterin working to build new networks to help Ethereum address large-scale transaction demands.
Simon Forster, digital assets joint head at TP ICAP brokerage, bluntly said Ethereum is increasingly becoming just another speculative crypto project:
It's becoming harder to sell. No one knows which of these decentralized networks will ultimately dominate.
