Ethereum is at a crossroads: both price and fundamentals face challenges

Introduction

DBA co-founder Jon Charbonneau published an article titled "Etherum's North Star" at the end of last year, pointing out that Ethereum lacks a clear "North Star" goal. Jon also stated earlier that even within Ethereum, there is no consensus on its core product.

Since this cycle, there has been ongoing discussion in the community about the poor performance of ETH prices. The ETH price not only reflects market sentiment but is also a key factor in whether Ethereum can unify the community's vision, balance decentralization and performance, and consolidate its leading position in the smart contract platform.

This article will discuss some issues that the author believes have arisen with Ethereum.

The importance of the ETH price ###

Although EF technicians are disgusted by the community's dissatisfaction with the behavior of ETH prices, believing they are short-term speculators, overly avoiding price discussions is also bad. The ETH price is important:

1. Directly related to the funds reserve of Ethereum.
2. Impact on Protocol Security
3. Reflecting the confidence of ecosystem participants

The price of ETH is a mirror and should be given attention by EF.

The relativity of decentralization and competition

Decentralization and competition are relative concepts. The main competition faced by Ethereum:

1. As a value storage asset: Compared to Bitcoin, ETH's value storage property is still significantly weaker than Bitcoin.

2. As a smart contract platform: facing fierce competition from Layer 1s like Solana and Sui. From the data on transaction volume, active addresses, etc., Ethereum shows a declining trend.

Competitors like Solana have formed differentiated advantages in technology, culture, and attention capture.

Ethereum Foundation's choice

There are divisions in the community regarding Aya's appointment as the chairperson of the EF. Critics point out that under her leadership, Ethereum's development has been slow, support has been insufficient, and "laissez-faire" has led to the EF's failure to actively coordinate ecological resources.

Aya advocates that the role of EF is "gardener" rather than "controller", promoting adaptive growth and decentralized leadership. However, during the system downturn phase, this idealism is difficult to gain acceptance.

EF needs to balance idealism with practical needs and respond more actively to community concerns.

"Ethereum is an ecosystem, not a company"

Vitalik emphasizes that Ethereum is a decentralized ecosystem, not a company. However, this makes it difficult to establish metrics to measure efficiency, leading to divergent system goals.

Nevertheless, the public still tends to value Ethereum in a corporate manner. From the fundamental data, the momentum of Ethereum is no longer strong.

EF's "coordinated rather than dominant" approach may lead to inefficiency and high friction in practice.

Conclusion

Ethereum is currently not favored by the market in this cycle. Its idealism requires real use cases and community support.

Suggestion:

• Accelerate development progress, focusing on scalability and cross-L2 interoperability.
• Strengthen education globally
• EF reform, achieving governance transparency and community oversight

As an Ethereum enthusiast, I feel regret about the current situation, but I also welcome the emergence of challengers. I hope Ethereum can rise again.