Ethereum is currently undergoing a full-fledged "midlife crisis." Over the past three months, its price has slumped by 40%, falling to $2,087 per token.
Competitors are not resting, with the Solana blockchain looking particularly strong. It has been widely used by creators of meme coins that do not aim for any serious utility except entertainment.
Carol Alexander, a finance professor at the University of Sussex, pointed out that all the hype around "decentralized finance" (DeFi) no longer seems appealing. According to her, the enthusiasm has waned, and investors have now realized with surprise that the Ethereum blockchain is not just cryptocurrency but a very complex technology that still requires understanding.
Ethereum has established its reputation as a "mature" network through which serious organizations create digital forms of money. Tether, USDC, PayPal, BlackRock, and Fidelity have been using it for their critical tasks for some time. However, even this status has not protected Ethereum from the ever-shifting preferences of crypto traders.
An especially unpleasant blow came when US President Donald Trump changed his mind about purchasing Ethereum for the US crypto reserve, despite having previously promised to do so.
Analysts note that Ethereum has simply lost its appeal to the general public: people now prefer to buy fun coins or dream about Bitcoin rather than dive into serious technical details.
Meanwhile, Ethereum developers are trying to find a way out of the crisis by improving the network and delegating transaction processing to second-layer networks. However, even this solution has been controversial—some experts call it a "free giveaway of value," and define Ethereum as a "regular commodity."
Nevertheless, Ethereum is still backed by a strong developer community, including Vitalik Buterin, who is actively working on new solutions.
Experts summarize the situation like this: Ethereum is evolving into one of many speculative cryptocurrency projects. Now, Ethereum must figure out how to survive its "midlife crisis" and once again become the most popular blockchain.
