撰文：Biteye

ETH/BTC 创下五年新低，老生态出走，新叙事不来——以太坊被困在技术升级和价值稀释的中间地带。

E The guards are still talking about ideals, but reality is clearing their faith.

This time, we don’t talk about feelings, we only talk about judgment: Is ETH worth it? What are the bulls and bears betting on?

以太坊尽管价格尚未起飞，但多头观点认为 ETH 的长期价值仍在逐步积累。 The ecological fundamentals are solid, technological upgrading is being promoted, and macro expectations are gradually improving, providing it with triple support.

1. Ethereum is still the absolute center of underlying infrastructure: Bitwise CIO@Matt_Hougan pointed out that ETH dominates the three major trends of stablecoins, tokenization and AI Agent. As long as Ethereum achieves a better user experience through Layer 2 without losing its original position in the hearts of institutions, the prospects are very optimistic and tend to be bullish. Masterkey's managing partner Saul Rejwan judged that once relaxed, ETH would be the first round beneficiary of DeFi and DePIN. @BTW0205 believes that although it is short-term, in the medium and long term, Ethereum still has ecological inertia and system-level advantages. As long as it can reconstruct the value model and promote the implementation of new narratives, there is still a possibility that the king will return.

2. Technology upgrades continue to release structural dividends: The Prague/Electra upgrade is imminent, and the performance improvement of Rollup will make ETH faster, cheaper and more open. Gas reduces attracting more users to return, and also strengthens the urgent need for ETH use. The bulls believe that the market has not yet priced these structural optimizations. @binji_x Also believes that the prototype of the "Ethereum Super Chain" is emerging and is expected to open up new growth space.

3. Ecological structural adjustment signal: @feifan7686 believes that Ethereum is shifting from technology-oriented to a development path dominated by capital and ecosystem. Pectra upgrade and adjust ETH attributes, cross-chainTesting to alleviate performance shortcomings and oracle layouts for pricing power is behind it a systematic "self-rescue" around capital structure and ecological discourse power. Although it is difficult to immediately reflect the price in the short term, the direction is clear and the overall tendency is bullish.

4、二级交易员喊出「ETH 被低估」：知名加密分析师@rovercrc 与知名交易员、BitMEX 前 CEO@CryptoHayes 相继发文，直指 ETH 被市场低估。 Hayes further predicts: ETH will lead SOL to $5,000. Although this kind of view is radical, it reflects that mainstream traders are re-examining the ETH valuation space.

5、宏观流动性驱动影响：@0xVeryBigOrange 认为无论围绕以太坊有多少技术路线或生态讨论，当前价格停滞的根本原因只有一个——宏观流动性尚未释放。 It’s not that ETH cannot do, the entire market has not yet entered the “flow cycle”.

6. Potential opportunities for bull market rotation: ETH has not risen, not because there is no chance, but because the rotation has not yet reached it. With the superimposed expectation of interest rate cuts and the progress of ETFs, ETH has the potential to return from the edge to the center. DigitalCoinPrice estimates that the optimistic scenario will hit $7,000 at the end of the year and may see $47,000 in the forward 2030.

7. TVL firmly ranks first, and on-chain funds are still heavily in charge. ETH: Ethereum currently has US$49.85 billion, accounting for more than half of the DeFi on the entire network. Although Solana and Tron performed well, ETH is still the most stable pool in terms of "storing money on the chain".

8. The inflation rate is lower, and the supply model is better than BTC: the annual issuance of ETH is only 0.5%, far lower than BTC's 0.83% (66% faster than ETH). This view emphasizes that Ethereum inflation rate is much lower than Bitcoin and that the monetary model is more sustainable.

9、开发者生态规模领先：风险投资机构 Electric Capital 发布年度报告称，ETH 拥有全球 65% 的链上开发者创新活动，每月活跃开发者超 6200 人，L2 开发者年增速达 67%。 These data suggest that Ethereum still occupies a central position in the developer community.

10. Foundation reform enhances governance expectations: Vitalik announced the restructuring of the foundation to improve the efficiency of technical decision-making and enhance transparency. For systemic assets such as ETH, upgrading of governance structure means increasing long-term certainty.

In summary, the belief among bulls is that Ethereum is the value precipitation pool of Web3, which is laying the technology for the next decade, and short-term price is not the core.

The core view of short sellers is: times have changed, ETH lags behind competitors in terms of growth, structure, efficiency and narrative, the technology route has not been converted into token value, and the ecosystem is also facing division.

1. From the perspective of institutions, ETH may not have fallen to the right place: @jason_chen998 believes that the fundamentals of Ethereum have expired. The only positive thing at present is ETF staking, but core institutions such as BlackRock have not taken action yet, which reflects that it is still lowering the price and absorbing funds, indicating that ETH may not have fallen to the right place. Overall, it is bearish.

2. The ETH ecosystem has lost its growth engine: @Loki_Zeng believes that the Ethereum ecosystem was completely silent in Q1 2025, with severe decline in on-chain data, traditional sectors (DeFi, L2, NFT) almost stagnant, and new hot spots (AI, Meme) are also irrelevant to ETH. ETFs that were once highly anticipated The pledge is good, the actual attractiveness is insufficient, and large funds find it difficult to accept the low-yield and high-cost configuration logic. Overall, it is believed that ETH lacks substantial growth momentum and tends to be bearish.

3. RWA narrative is disillusioned, and Ethereum may not be the optimal solution: @yuyue_chris questioned Ethereum's actual ability in the RWA track. Although ETH has long been regarded as the "safety bearer" of RWA assets, its weak coin price and the liquidation risks caused by the PoS mechanism are weakening its credibility as the bottom layer of RWA. Overall, it is doubtful that Ethereum’s ability to carry global RWA is overestimated, and its supporting role in RWA is biased towards bearishness.

4. On-chain growth slowed down: @PANewsCN researcher @wsy20211111 In his commentary in December 2024, the growth of ETH mainnet users has stagnated in the past year, and a large number of new users prefer new chains such as L2 or Solana. In his opinion, Ethereum is transforming into a "value sedimentation pool for large investors", and ordinary small users and emerging popular users shouldUse a link that prefers lower processing fees and faster speeds. This view highlights the pressure Ethereum faces in user growth.

5. Supply volume enters inflation: As online transaction fees continue to decline, Ethereum's daily burn volume fell to historical lows. This has resulted in a significant drop in the estimated destruction rate of ETH, resulting in an increase in its supply by about 0.76% annually, or about 945,000 new ETHs per year. Today, Ethereum's overall supply has exceeded its pre-merger level.

6. The ETH/BTC ratio broke the five-year low: On March 31, analyst James Van Straten said that the exchange rate of ETH against BTC fell to 0.02193, a five-year low. Under the BTC halving market and the new L1 rotation, ETH has become the "most unscaling mainstream currency", with funds gradually flowing out and faith shaken.

7. New public chains such as Solana are rising, and ETH competition is intensifying: Solana has a lighter user experience and a more lively cultural atmosphere, attracting a large number of incremental users and developers. The chains such as Base and Sui are growing actively, and the ETH main network has gradually become a base for institutions and traditional projects, losing the attractiveness of young projects.

8. Questioning the technical route, whether to empower or weaken the value: Investor John Pfeffer said that the current technical route promoted by Ethereum is beneficial to users and negatively impacting the value of tokens. Layer2 expansion and PoS transformation will reduce main chain congestion and handling fees. Although this improves the on-chain experience, it reduces the consumption of ETH per transaction.

9. Core application outflow: At the end of 2024, it was reported in the industry that Uniswap plans to launch an independent chain, and Uniswap is the largest source of ETH Gas, accounting for more than 14%. If it moves the chain, ETH will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in handling fees every year, and will also lose an important source of combustion, and the risk of ecological siphon is intensified.

10. The foundation was accused of cashing out at a high level, and governance trust was questioned: the Ethereum Foundation was exposed to sell at a high level at the end of 2024, which triggered "internal bearish" speculation. The inefficient governance and slow expansion have caused the community to lose confidence in future development.

11. The community routes are obviously different: Base head Jesse Pollak and core developer DankradFeist has fundamental differences in the dependence degree between the mainnet and L2, the route is unclear, and the execution efficiency is reduced. Although Vitalik speaks out, his overall sense of direction is insufficient and his strategy is swaying.

In short, the core logic of bears is: Ethereum is in a dilemma of technological advancement and price lag, while the ecological center of gravity, narrative power, and user growth are all quietly slipping away.

Based on the above long-term factors, we can make the following comprehensive analysis based on the mentality and decision-making of coin holders: 1. Coin holders who focus on long-term value

If you believe that ETH represents the infrastructure layer of Crypto in the future, with the widest developers, the strongest DeFi ecosystem and the continuous evolution of technical routes, the developers, funds, and structural narratives have not yet collapsed, and it is still the core carrier chain of the new narrative (DePIN, AI Agent, RWA). Then, it is a logical choice to hold or even increase positions in batches and wait for the next cycle.

2. Focus on medium- and short-term profits and high risk aversion to currency holders

Moderately reducing ETH positions at this moment may be more in line with the strategy. After all, the above many of the positive factors are more likely to gradually emerge in the medium and long term, while ETH may continue to fluctuate or even weaken in the short term. The competitive landscape and value dilemma mentioned in the short argument are not problems that can be solved in one or two quarters.

At this time, you can consider reducing positions, retaining the bottom position and adjusting positions flexibly, and then raising bets after the ETH trend is clear. You can also operate moderately in bands to improve capital efficiency. A neutral strategy can consider retaining a portion of the bottom position (in order to prevent missing potential outbreaks), while using another portion of the funds to band or allocate other assets to hedge the opportunity cost of holding ETH.

3. Coin holders who care about short-term performance and certainty, or have doubts about Ethereum's route, are also wise choices. They can consider completing most positions in batches when rebounding, and continue to pay attention to key indicators of the Ethereum ecosystem (such as on-chain activity, etc.). If there are signs of significant improvement in the future fundamentals, or new narratives appear, adjust the positions in time.