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Bitcoin EcosystemDependency Trap: The Risk Behind AI Convenience
Today, anyone can spin up a prototype by chatting with a large language model or generate images without a design degree. Yet this super-power can vanish overnight. We neither own nor control it. A handful of corporations—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google—own the racks, the GPUs and the switch that powers most online services. We rent their brains. Picture the morning they pull the plug: a server hiccup freezes your product; a geofence locks out your country; a price hike prices out your start-up. In...
Bitcoin EcosystemSmart "Gatekeeper": How Conditional Liquidity is Rewriting Solana's Trading Rules?
Conditional Liquidity is a major innovation in the DeFi space aimed at addressing the shortcomings of traditional passive liquidity models, particularly on high-performance public chains like Solana. It seeks to redefine trading fairness and efficiency through intelligent rules. The Dilemma of Traditional DEXs Under the conventional Automated Market Maker (AMM) model, liquidity pools are open 24/7, making regular users vulnerable to "toxic order flow" such as sandwich attacks and front-runnin...
Bitcoin EcosystemForget Hyperliquid — The Next Wave of Perp DEXs Will Be on Solana
The next wave of growth for perpetual futures decentralized exchanges may emerge within the Solana ecosystem, not on Hyperliquid. The core arguments are as follows: * Architectural Advantages: Solana allows for application-specific optimizations at the validator level. Running a dedicated trading engine within validator nodes can achieve a sub-second trading experience comparable to Hyperliquid. Compared to Ethereum L2s, which are burdened by technical debt like centralized sequencers, transa...
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Bitcoin EcosystemIs Ethereum’s Rebound Just a Fleeting Moment?
Subscribe to Bitcoin Ecosystem
<100 subscribers
Support Bitcoin Ecosystem
Bitcoin EcosystemIs Ethereum’s Rebound Just a Fleeting Moment?
Bitcoin EcosystemDependency Trap: The Risk Behind AI Convenience
Today, anyone can spin up a prototype by chatting with a large language model or generate images without a design degree. Yet this super-power can vanish overnight. We neither own nor control it. A handful of corporations—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google—own the racks, the GPUs and the switch that powers most online services. We rent their brains. Picture the morning they pull the plug: a server hiccup freezes your product; a geofence locks out your country; a price hike prices out your start-up. In...
Bitcoin EcosystemSmart "Gatekeeper": How Conditional Liquidity is Rewriting Solana's Trading Rules?
Conditional Liquidity is a major innovation in the DeFi space aimed at addressing the shortcomings of traditional passive liquidity models, particularly on high-performance public chains like Solana. It seeks to redefine trading fairness and efficiency through intelligent rules. The Dilemma of Traditional DEXs Under the conventional Automated Market Maker (AMM) model, liquidity pools are open 24/7, making regular users vulnerable to "toxic order flow" such as sandwich attacks and front-runnin...
Bitcoin EcosystemForget Hyperliquid — The Next Wave of Perp DEXs Will Be on Solana
The next wave of growth for perpetual futures decentralized exchanges may emerge within the Solana ecosystem, not on Hyperliquid. The core arguments are as follows: * Architectural Advantages: Solana allows for application-specific optimizations at the validator level. Running a dedicated trading engine within validator nodes can achieve a sub-second trading experience comparable to Hyperliquid. Compared to Ethereum L2s, which are burdened by technical debt like centralized sequencers, transa...
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Ethereum Needs a Wake-Up Call
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s hard to find anyone in the cryptocurrency space who hasn’t noticed Ethereum’s decline over the past few months. Price trends, market dominance, and community sentiment—name any of these, and they’re all at historical lows! This top-tier cryptocurrency seems to be taking a significant hit—so much so that it hasn’t even set a new all-time high in this cycle. However, in the past few days, Ethereum appears to be rebounding. Why has it been underperforming for months on end? And can the current momentum propel it back to its former glory?
Ethereum’s Struggles
There’s no denying that Ethereum is struggling. Since December 2024, whenever market sentiment shifts and the crypto market as a whole takes a dip, only Bitcoin has been able to bounce back to its previous price levels and break through, while Ethereum has fallen and almost never managed to return to its starting point.
Here’s a look at Ethereum’s market performance over the past few months. In November 2024, when the market was on an upward trajectory, Bitcoin was priced at around $96,405, while Ethereum was at $3,703. On December 1, 2024, the market experienced a slight downturn, with Bitcoin falling to $93,557 and Ethereum dropping to $3,337. Although both top cryptocurrencies reached significant price levels later that month, they failed to sustain the upward trend and fell again.
About a month later, on January 1, 2025, Bitcoin was priced at $94,500, slightly higher than the previous month, while Ethereum further declined to $3,298. By February 1, the price data showed Bitcoin had plummeted to $84,381, and Ethereum had dropped to $2,236. Bitcoin later reached $102,000 that month, but Ethereum failed to bounce back to its previous high. In fact, as Bitcoin rebounded from $84,381 in February to $94,304 in April, Ethereum continued to fall, unable to retest its previous highs. In fact, the BTC/ETH ratio has widened, as shown by the chart data.
Is Ethereum’s Rebound Just a Fleeting Moment?
Source: CoinMarketCap
As of the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at around $2,400, which is a decent increase considering its performance over the past few months. However, it hasn’t yet made a push for higher price ranges. What exactly is going wrong in the Ethereum market? Let’s break down a few key points.
Bitcoin and Meme Coins Steal the Spotlight
Over the past few months, Bitcoin and Meme Coins have stolen the show. You might have heard about the US government’s plan to establish Bitcoin reserves. This plan has been widely discussed among retail and institutional investors, with several US states also working on building strategic Bitcoin reserves. Texas and New Hampshire have made progress in this regard, and other US states as well as some other countries are following suit.
Sovereign interest has further attracted the attention of market whales and institutional investors. Recently, Michael Saylor announced that Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) has added to its Bitcoin holdings to solidify its position as the publicly traded company with the largest Bitcoin holdings. With a total supply of 21 million Bitcoins, Strategy now holds over 555,000 Bitcoins.
While Bitcoin has taken center stage and overshadowed Ethereum, Meme Coins have been doing the same. Unfortunately, these Meme Coins have not been launched on the Ethereum chain. One of the most successful Meme Coins in 2025, Fartcoin, with a market cap of over $1 billion, was launched on the Solana chain. The popular Meme Coin launch platform, PumpFun, is also on Solana. You might not have noticed, but most of the hottest Meme Tokens created at the end of 2024 and in 2025 have come from PumpFun.
Is Ethereum’s Rebound Just a Fleeting Moment?
Source: CoinMarketCap
Thus, Ethereum has clearly missed out on this wave of enthusiasm. Moreover, discussions around decentralized finance (DeFi) have also significantly diminished, as there have been no major innovations. Overall, Ethereum has not been at the center of any significant hype—nothing has been driving its price upward.
Liquidity Flows to Subnetworks
Ethereum’s high gas fees have always been a major barrier to its growth. What’s worse, the Ethereum network is filled with Layer-2 networks such as Polygon, Optimism, Base, Linea, and Arbitrum. These Layer-2 networks compete with Ethereum for liquidity. With USDC in place, these networks don’t need much ETH to operate. Not to mention that a variety of activities can be conducted on these Layer-2 platforms, so transactions through the Ethereum main chain have decreased. Therefore, even if the on-chain usage rate is high, the demand for ETH should have risen, but it hasn’t.
Competing Networks
We’ve briefly touched on how competitors like Solana have eroded Ethereum’s market dominance. The reality is that Solana offers a better experience for both developers and users. Who wouldn’t want a faster, cheaper, and more powerful chain? According to CoinGecko’s report on Solana, the continuous activity on the Solana chain reveals why it continues to attract more developers and retail investors. Here are some standout reasons:
Higher performance and scalability: Solana can process up to 3,000 transactions per second, and theoretically, it can even reach 65,000 TPS. In any case, Ethereum’s transaction processing capacity of 15 per second simply can’t compete. Considering that Solana’s cost for handling large transactions is extremely low, it’s clear why developers favor it. Active and helpful ecosystem: The Solana ecosystem offers a wealth of resources and tools for developers, promoting its growth. The Solana ecosystem provides developer toolkits and funding opportunities, enabling new projects to emerge seamlessly.
Similar to Solana, Avalanche is also growing in popularity and capability. The institutional adoption of these Layer-1 platforms will further erode Ethereum’s dominance. Hyperliquid and Tron have made progress in perpetual futures trading and stablecoin markets, respectively.
Limited Institutional Interest
While global companies, market heavyweights, and nations continue to accumulate Bitcoin, the situation for Ethereum is quite different. According to CoinGecko data, there are very few publicly traded companies holding Ethereum, with a total value of less than $500 million, compared to over $50 billion for Bitcoin.
The cryptocurrency ETF market shows a huge gap in demand between Bitcoin and Ethereum, with the latter failing to record the substantial inflows of capital that the former has. ETF inflow data indicates that Bitcoin, with its first-mover advantage and widely accepted store-of-value function, has attracted significant investments from large investors. Although Ethereum has recorded billions of dollars in spot ETFs, its numbers still lag far behind Bitcoin.
Ethereum’s Hope: Will It Make a Comeback?
Ethereum needs a wake-up call to regain market dominance, attract widespread investment, and achieve a surge in value. At the time of writing, Ethereum has just activated an upgrade. This is a welcome development, but it doesn’t address the challenges of asset and data bridging within Ethereum’s Layer-2 ecosystem. Competitors like Solana still hold an advantage, as users can seamlessly switch between multiple decentralized applications (DApps). Nevertheless, this upgrade seems to have had a positive impact on Ethereum’s price, which has risen by 20% in the past 24 hours to reach $2,400. Will this top-tier altcoin make a comeback this time? We must wait patiently to see how much improvement the recent upgrade brings to the Ethereum chain and whether it’s enough to get ETH back on track.
Ethereum Needs a Wake-Up Call
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s hard to find anyone in the cryptocurrency space who hasn’t noticed Ethereum’s decline over the past few months. Price trends, market dominance, and community sentiment—name any of these, and they’re all at historical lows! This top-tier cryptocurrency seems to be taking a significant hit—so much so that it hasn’t even set a new all-time high in this cycle. However, in the past few days, Ethereum appears to be rebounding. Why has it been underperforming for months on end? And can the current momentum propel it back to its former glory?
Ethereum’s Struggles
There’s no denying that Ethereum is struggling. Since December 2024, whenever market sentiment shifts and the crypto market as a whole takes a dip, only Bitcoin has been able to bounce back to its previous price levels and break through, while Ethereum has fallen and almost never managed to return to its starting point.
Here’s a look at Ethereum’s market performance over the past few months. In November 2024, when the market was on an upward trajectory, Bitcoin was priced at around $96,405, while Ethereum was at $3,703. On December 1, 2024, the market experienced a slight downturn, with Bitcoin falling to $93,557 and Ethereum dropping to $3,337. Although both top cryptocurrencies reached significant price levels later that month, they failed to sustain the upward trend and fell again.
About a month later, on January 1, 2025, Bitcoin was priced at $94,500, slightly higher than the previous month, while Ethereum further declined to $3,298. By February 1, the price data showed Bitcoin had plummeted to $84,381, and Ethereum had dropped to $2,236. Bitcoin later reached $102,000 that month, but Ethereum failed to bounce back to its previous high. In fact, as Bitcoin rebounded from $84,381 in February to $94,304 in April, Ethereum continued to fall, unable to retest its previous highs. In fact, the BTC/ETH ratio has widened, as shown by the chart data.
Is Ethereum’s Rebound Just a Fleeting Moment?
Source: CoinMarketCap
As of the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at around $2,400, which is a decent increase considering its performance over the past few months. However, it hasn’t yet made a push for higher price ranges. What exactly is going wrong in the Ethereum market? Let’s break down a few key points.
Bitcoin and Meme Coins Steal the Spotlight
Over the past few months, Bitcoin and Meme Coins have stolen the show. You might have heard about the US government’s plan to establish Bitcoin reserves. This plan has been widely discussed among retail and institutional investors, with several US states also working on building strategic Bitcoin reserves. Texas and New Hampshire have made progress in this regard, and other US states as well as some other countries are following suit.
Sovereign interest has further attracted the attention of market whales and institutional investors. Recently, Michael Saylor announced that Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) has added to its Bitcoin holdings to solidify its position as the publicly traded company with the largest Bitcoin holdings. With a total supply of 21 million Bitcoins, Strategy now holds over 555,000 Bitcoins.
While Bitcoin has taken center stage and overshadowed Ethereum, Meme Coins have been doing the same. Unfortunately, these Meme Coins have not been launched on the Ethereum chain. One of the most successful Meme Coins in 2025, Fartcoin, with a market cap of over $1 billion, was launched on the Solana chain. The popular Meme Coin launch platform, PumpFun, is also on Solana. You might not have noticed, but most of the hottest Meme Tokens created at the end of 2024 and in 2025 have come from PumpFun.
Is Ethereum’s Rebound Just a Fleeting Moment?
Source: CoinMarketCap
Thus, Ethereum has clearly missed out on this wave of enthusiasm. Moreover, discussions around decentralized finance (DeFi) have also significantly diminished, as there have been no major innovations. Overall, Ethereum has not been at the center of any significant hype—nothing has been driving its price upward.
Liquidity Flows to Subnetworks
Ethereum’s high gas fees have always been a major barrier to its growth. What’s worse, the Ethereum network is filled with Layer-2 networks such as Polygon, Optimism, Base, Linea, and Arbitrum. These Layer-2 networks compete with Ethereum for liquidity. With USDC in place, these networks don’t need much ETH to operate. Not to mention that a variety of activities can be conducted on these Layer-2 platforms, so transactions through the Ethereum main chain have decreased. Therefore, even if the on-chain usage rate is high, the demand for ETH should have risen, but it hasn’t.
Competing Networks
We’ve briefly touched on how competitors like Solana have eroded Ethereum’s market dominance. The reality is that Solana offers a better experience for both developers and users. Who wouldn’t want a faster, cheaper, and more powerful chain? According to CoinGecko’s report on Solana, the continuous activity on the Solana chain reveals why it continues to attract more developers and retail investors. Here are some standout reasons:
Higher performance and scalability: Solana can process up to 3,000 transactions per second, and theoretically, it can even reach 65,000 TPS. In any case, Ethereum’s transaction processing capacity of 15 per second simply can’t compete. Considering that Solana’s cost for handling large transactions is extremely low, it’s clear why developers favor it. Active and helpful ecosystem: The Solana ecosystem offers a wealth of resources and tools for developers, promoting its growth. The Solana ecosystem provides developer toolkits and funding opportunities, enabling new projects to emerge seamlessly.
Similar to Solana, Avalanche is also growing in popularity and capability. The institutional adoption of these Layer-1 platforms will further erode Ethereum’s dominance. Hyperliquid and Tron have made progress in perpetual futures trading and stablecoin markets, respectively.
Limited Institutional Interest
While global companies, market heavyweights, and nations continue to accumulate Bitcoin, the situation for Ethereum is quite different. According to CoinGecko data, there are very few publicly traded companies holding Ethereum, with a total value of less than $500 million, compared to over $50 billion for Bitcoin.
The cryptocurrency ETF market shows a huge gap in demand between Bitcoin and Ethereum, with the latter failing to record the substantial inflows of capital that the former has. ETF inflow data indicates that Bitcoin, with its first-mover advantage and widely accepted store-of-value function, has attracted significant investments from large investors. Although Ethereum has recorded billions of dollars in spot ETFs, its numbers still lag far behind Bitcoin.
Ethereum’s Hope: Will It Make a Comeback?
Ethereum needs a wake-up call to regain market dominance, attract widespread investment, and achieve a surge in value. At the time of writing, Ethereum has just activated an upgrade. This is a welcome development, but it doesn’t address the challenges of asset and data bridging within Ethereum’s Layer-2 ecosystem. Competitors like Solana still hold an advantage, as users can seamlessly switch between multiple decentralized applications (DApps). Nevertheless, this upgrade seems to have had a positive impact on Ethereum’s price, which has risen by 20% in the past 24 hours to reach $2,400. Will this top-tier altcoin make a comeback this time? We must wait patiently to see how much improvement the recent upgrade brings to the Ethereum chain and whether it’s enough to get ETH back on track.
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