Author: Tom Mitchelhill Compiled by: Daisy, Mars Finance

Analysts and experts said that AI agents, A series of important network upgrades and improvements in the regulatory environment in the United States are reasons for Ethereum fans to look forward to 2025.

Ethereum backers say AI agents, major network upgrades, increased institutional interest and the crypto-friendliness of new U.S. President Donald Trump have brought Comprehensive regulatory reforms are all reasons for people to look forward to 2025.

Infinex founder Kain Warwick said in an interview with Cointelegraph that although Ethereum's performance in 2024 is slightly flat, this asset is like a "compressed "Spring" and is ready for a breakthrough in 2025.

According to TradingView data, ETH (Ethereum) has risen 53.5% so far this year, rising from $2,350 on January 1 to the current $3,478.

ETH has posted a year-to-date gain of 53.5%. Source:TradingView

Meanwhile, other major cryptoassets including Solana, Cardano and Ripple’s XRP have each gained 92.7% this year %, 57% and 276.5%.

"The longer you hold it down, the stronger it will rebound. There are many favorable factors and some constraints, but once it breaks through, people will Say 'oh my god'," Warwick said.

Source:Kain Warwick

He mentioned aSome Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and the user experience improvements brought by these upgrades are considered to be key turning points in the price trend of Ethereum and ETH.

"In 2025, I think we will see improvements in account abstraction, great progress in L2 interoperability, and user experience between L2 It will also be greatly improved."

Ethereum will usher in the Pectra upgrade in 2025

One ​​of the major upgrades that Warwick and other Ethereum supporters are eagerly awaiting is Pectra. Upgrade – This is the next major milestone on the Ethereum roadmap and is expected to launch in early 2025.

Gaia Regis, co-founder and CEO of Restaking platform Byzantine, said that the Pectra upgrade will fundamentally change the way Ethereum’s security layer operates.

"Currently, Ethereum staking relies mainly on liquidity. Essentially, many ETH holders want to participate in staking. This is usually a good thing, because more Nodes mean more decentralization and higher security," she said.

However, Regis said that Ethereum has now reached enormous scale - more than 1 million communications between Ethereum validators - which is starting to lead to The speed of the network slows down.

"Pectra solves this problem by increasing the maximum valid validator balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, thus significantly reducing the number of validators required and reducing to overcome the pressure of the Internet," Regis said.

"Less pressure means a faster network and a better experience for Ethereum users."

In September this year, Ethereum core developers decided to split the Pectra upgrade into two main packages. The first Pectra package will introduce a total of eight EIPs, the most important of which is EIP-7702, designed to improve the user experience of wallet and chain abstractions.

"This will make staking cheaper, leading to more people participating in staking, So as time goes byLower staking rewards. Because of this, we are extremely bullish on restaking. Many people will want to increase their staking rewards by staking other networks. ”

Trump’s crypto-friendly SEC will be particularly beneficial to ETH

Saul Rejwan, managing partner of crypto venture capital firm Masterkey, said in an interview with Cointelegraph that Ethereum Squares, as well as more “legitimate” projects in the crypto industry, especially decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN), will be better served by Trump and a more crypto-friendly U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Benefit the most.

On December 4, Trump nominated pro-cryptocurrency businessman and former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins as the next SEC Chairman, and current Chairman Gary Gensler plans to Resigned from his post on January 20.

"With a more favorable regulatory environment, DeFi projects on Ethereum will flourish, and areas like restaking will only need a little more Regulatory promotion can attract institutional investors," he said.

"We expect this new leadership will lower barriers to entry, making it easier for early-stage crypto entrepreneurs and resilient companies to innovate and succeed."< /p>Stablecoins, tokenization and AI agents

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Houghan said that Ethereum has three major advantages as it enters 2025 and expects this Assets will explode in the new year.

"Ethereum is at the center of three of the biggest trends in the crypto industry: the rise of stablecoins, tokenization, and AI agents. It is present in all three areas. Dominant market share," Houghan said.

He added: "I think the excitement in these three areas next year will This affects Ethereum, making it the comeback king of 2025. You can already see this in the recent strong performance and ETF inflows. ”

Over the past two weeks, the Ethereum ETFNet inflows hit $1.5 billion, making it one of the largest periods of inflows among eight spot funds, according to Farside Investors.

Ethereum ETFs have witnessed over $1.5 billion in net inflows in the last two trading weeks. Source: Farside Investors

Like Rejwan, Houghan also believes that the new crypto-friendly SEC under Trump will be particularly beneficial to Ethereum. favorable.

"I look forward to lifting the 'Sword of Damocles' that has hung over the U.S. crypto industry for the past four years. Washington's new approach will unleash hundreds of Thousands of crypto entrepreneurs, many of whom will build killer applications on Ethereum and its second-layer network," Houghan said.

"We are entering a golden age of cryptography, and Ethereum will be one of the main beneficiaries of this boom."

Houghan said that overall, Bitwise expects ETH to break through the previous all-time high price of $4,878 and reach what he described as a "conservative" forecast high of $7,000.

More second-layer networks, heavy collateral, and better DApps

Edu Timmers, Ethereum supporter and chief marketing officer of encryption company Keyrock, believes that with Abstract and The release of new second-layer networks, such as the Deutsche Bank project, will increase the widespread adoption of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Timmers also mentioned that the recent rise of Hyperliquid, an on-chain perpetual contract protocol built on Arbitrum, proves the growth of Ethereum’s dominance on the chain. He said he expects Ethereum and its ecosystem of decentralized applications (DApps) to start competing with centralized market leaders like Binance in the new year.

"Like HyperliquidProjects will start competing with centralized players like Binance in 2025, rather than decentralized projects like Uniswap,” Timmers said.

In addition, Timmers said that Ethereum restaking is another undervalued area worth paying attention to in 2025, saying that this will make the network more Robust and versatile.

"As the chain begins to transfer security to the Ethereum mainnet through solutions like EigenLayer, heavy staking may see a breakthrough."