Ether (ETH) has established itself as the industry’s second most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin for many years. The notion of BTC as “digital gold” has gained traction, with Ethereum often dubbed the “digital silver.” However, just as Bitcoin has been the subject of heavy criticism, Ether has not been spared, and some commentators have raised critical questions about its future viability.
Ether’s performance has come under the spotlight as the crypto market rallies. While ETH has not severely underperformed, many still consider its growth lackluster, especially as Bitcoin almost set a fresh lifetime high recently.
Nonetheless, Benjamin Cowen, a respected figure in crypto analysis, has stressed that Ether is not dying.
“No Hope Left For Ether Anymore”
Meanwhile, Cyber Capital’s founder and CIO, Justin Bons, recently sparked discussions on X after asserting that Ether “is cooked”. In his post, Bons highlighted reasons why he believes Ethereum is headed down the path of irrelevance.
For starters, he cites self-interest, which leads to focus on the development of Layer 2 networks instead of scaling its base layer.
“Today ETH could not be further away from that original cypherpunk dream, as L1 capacity is so limited. While all major L2s can steal, censor & freeze user funds, where did they expect users to go?” Bons quipped.
In his view, these L2s are fragmented and centralized, which has significantly affected users’ experience — leaving the Solana blockchain as the better alternative:
“That is why SOL exceeds ETH & all L2s combined on usage on most days. Anyone who both values real usage & decentralization is clearly way better off on SOL! At least SOL cannot steal, censor & freeze user funds!”
Ethereum Not On Death Spiral
The price of Ethereum has surged 1.4% over the last 24 hours to trade for $2,684 as of publication time. However, compared to Bitcoin, Ether’s growth trajectory has been rather muted. Bitcoin has bounced by 8.6% on a seven-day basis, with a 52-week high of 108%.
While BTC’s price is just 2.6% away from its current historic high of $73,737, ETH will need to rally 44.4% to reach its highest price point in history. Suffice it to say that the underwhelming spot of Ethereum exchange-traded fund launches and growing competition with smart contracts’ top competitor, Solana, have drained traders’ appetite for the industry’s second-largest crypto by market cap in 2024.
In an Oct. 30 post on the X micro-blogging platform, analyst Benjamin Cowen explained what he believes is going on. According to Cowen, the ETH/BTC chart is doing what it has always done, losing its strength against Bitcoin. However, he believes the ETH/BTC trading pair will likely bottom out this quarter and skyrocket in 2025.
The pundit forecasted the bottom would be in once ETH/BTC surpasses the 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA).
While he believes ETH’s longer-term market structure is bullish, Cowen stated that he is not ruling out a decline in the ETH/USD pair in November/December before continuing with its rally.