Is there still anyone bullish on Ethereum?
Is everything over?Author: Ignas | DeFi
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
The market sentiment for Ethereum has turned extremely bearish for the fourth time this year.
People are gradually realizing that the concept of "ultrasound money" is no longer applicable, as both the revenue and burn rate of Ethereum (ETH) are declining.
While activity on L1 needs to increase, this activity has actually shifted to L2, and the community believes this has not brought significant benefits to ETH.
@iamDCinvestor hopes to re-emphasize the value of Ethereum (ETH) as a programmable currency, which he considers the only important narrative.
This viewpoint is based on viewing ETH as high-quality collateral, making metrics like revenue and burn seem less important.
In contrast, @ChainLinkGod argues that stablecoins have proven to be a more effective and widely used form of programmable currency than ETH.
The narrative of Ethereum (ETH) as "digital oil" is also weakening, as more Layer 2 solutions begin to use their own native tokens to pay for gas fees.
Even developers are feeling concerned.
The founder of @ambient_finance, @0xdoug, humorously yet accurately compared Ethereum's roadmap centered around aggregation to a pilot discovering mid-flight that the runway is too short, yet insists that everything is fine—despite all evidence suggesting otherwise.
Worse yet, this pilot is drunk.
In the development of Ethereum, seeing the aggregation-centered roadmap wobble and adjust economically feels like sitting on a chartered flight when the pilot suddenly tells you that the main airport on the target island is closed, and he plans to land on a newly constructed runway.
You ask, "Are you sure that runway is long enough?"
He replies, "Of course, no problem."
However, you check and find that the runway is indeed too short. The pilot then says, "It's okay, there's a patch of grass at the end of the runway."
But when you look at the map, you find that the patch of grass leads directly to water. The pilot continues to reassure, "Don't worry, the plane can float."
However, when you flip through the onboard manual, you find that it clearly states that landing on water is strictly prohibited because the plane is not capable of floating.
At this point, you start to smell whiskey on the pilot's breath. You insist, "We should divert to Nassau International Airport."
The pilot is furious at this suggestion: "Do you know how angry the passengers will be?! They signed up to go to that island. They have everything planned out and paid for their accommodations. Now we can only crash the plane; there are no other options."
Is it all over?
@llamaonthebrink believes that to assess the value of Ethereum (ETH), one needs social awareness, an understanding of the blockchain industry's mission, an appreciation for network effects, skepticism towards fiat currencies, and a belief in an innovative internet-native society.
ETH is different from traditional assets, making it difficult to define using conventional narratives like "digital oil" or "tech stocks."
Its value lies in the ability to build an internet-native sovereign economy that does not rely on intermediaries or traditional systems.
This requires us to have foresight, understand network effects, and see the unrealized possibilities.
Ethereum defines its own future, surpassing the scope that existing frameworks can predict.
Some may find this difficult to understand for the baby boomer generation and traditional institutions.
@mikeneuder provides a visionary example.
His optimism about Ethereum stems from the fact that it offers a decentralized, self-custodied, and permissionless system capable of enabling global value transfer, which is difficult to seize or censor.
This is at the core of its long-term value proposition
Decentralization is not just an optional feature; it is crucial.
In a world where governments and companies can control centralized systems, Ethereum, with its neutral and anti-censorship design, becomes a unique digital property rights system.
While Bitcoin (BTC) also has anti-censorship capabilities, as block rewards gradually decrease, Bitcoin will rely on transaction fees to incentivize miners, which may not guarantee its long-term security.
This is a point previously mentioned by well-known researchers at the Ethereum Foundation, such as @drakefjustin.
Ethereum
31 million ETH has been staked
Each ETH is worth $3,400
-> Total economic security value reaches $105 billion
Bitcoin
Hash rate reaches 600 million terahashes per second
Each hash is worth $17.5
-> Total economic security value is $10.5 billion
Moreover, compared to Ethereum's flexible scalable aggregation roadmap, Bitcoin's static development characteristics make it more difficult to adapt to changes.
@adamscochran points out that in the short term, compared to current Layer 2 designs, Based Rollups can fundamentally change the incentive structure, directly impacting the monetization process of ETH.
This change could increase the long-term demand for ETH by up to 100 times.
After completing the PoS transition and introducing the ETH burn mechanism, ETH was once considered to be developing smoothly.
However, due to the continued low price of ETH, the narrative around Ethereum is currently stagnant.
For me personally, it is fascinating to observe how the community discusses and attempts to redefine the narrative around Ethereum.
I agree with @llamaonthebrink that to truly understand the value of Ethereum, more social awareness and a deeper understanding of the industry's mission are needed.
However, when greed and speculation cloud our judgment, the entire industry often strays from its mission. Only when the situation becomes difficult do people refocus on their original intentions.
We also notice that discussions among the Ethereum Foundation and Layer 2 developers are becoming more active, and even Vitalik is increasing his interaction with the community.
This clearly indicates that there is an increasing urgency to get back on the right development track.
However, as @0xdoug asked, "Are you sure this plane has a long enough runway?"
Even so, I remain optimistic about the future (if you wish, you can call it a holder's bias).
