ETH Hangzhou on-site survey: There is no hope for a new high within 3 years, see you in the next cycle

Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Standing at the end of Q1 2025, there is no doubt that the most frustrated crypto group is the "E Guards".

On the one hand, the ETH/BTC exchange rate fell to its lowest point in nearly five years since May 2020, at only 0.02193; on the other hand, the "soul figure" of Ethereum, Vitalik, recently made a very puzzling move of "meowing like a cat" to a robot dog, which in turn aroused dissatisfaction among some people in the Ethereum community.

At the moment when the price of Ethereum has fallen below $1,800, the activities of "ETH Hangzhou" are in full swing, and many developers and Ethereum community members are still enthusiastically participating in the construction of the Ethereum ecosystem in various ways. Odaily Planet Daily interviewed the people on the scene of "ETH Hangzhou" to hear their views on the development of the Ethereum ecosystem.

When the “butt determines the head” has failed: 50% of people hold less than 10 ETH, and 40% hold less than 100 ETH

At the Demo Day of ETH Hangzhou, Wenser, a reporter from Odaily Planet Daily, conducted a rough small sample questionnaire survey on the participants. The cumulative sample size was about 10 people, including:

Only one person has liquidated his ETH;
50% of people hold 1-10 ETH;
The number of people holding 10-100 ETH accounts for 40%.

It is worth mentioning that @Solomon_NAHHH, who liquidated his ETH, mentioned that he had liquidated his ETH a year ago, and now part of his position is on SUI; @0xBenniee, who holds a small amount of ETH, believes that the Ethereum ecosystem is extremely abstract; and among those who hold less than 100 ETH, @ConstantinGao revealed that he holds a large number of ETH short positions.

ETH Ecosystem Development Stage: 70% of People Think It Has Entered Middle Age

In a small sample questionnaire survey of 10 people, there is a certain consensus on the issue of the development stage of the Ethereum ecosystem.

20% (2 people) believe that the Ethereum ecosystem is still young;
70% (7 people) believe that the Ethereum ecosystem has entered middle age;
10% (1 person) believe that the Ethereum ecosystem has entered its old age.

Those who hold the first view mainly consider it from the perspective of technical routes. They believe that the Ethereum ecosystem is still in its early stages in terms of the realization of technical routes, and the implementation of many technical routes is still in the exploration stage. In contrast, those who believe that the Ethereum ecosystem has entered its old age mainly consider it from the perspective of token economy. They believe that from the perspective of the ETH coin issuance time cycle and the token operation stage, the Ethereum ecosystem has already entered a relatively solidified old age stage.

Those who believe that the Ethereum ecosystem has entered its middle-aged stage mainly look at it from the perspective of the ecosystem development stage. Currently, Ethereum is already in a relatively complete infrastructure construction. Except for the DeFi track, other sub-tracks have been falsified to varying degrees; capital liquidity and major crypto projects still regard the Ethereum mainnet or EVM environment as the main ecosystem.

Possibility of a new high in ETH price: no hope within 3 years, see you in the next cycle

When asked whether the price of ETH can break through the previous historical high of nearly US$4,800 within 1-2 years and set a new high, almost everyone was pessimistic, including the "E Guard" who entered the circle and contacted ETH in 2019 and the "ETH Ecosystem Builder" who is engaged in the development of DeFi projects in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Overall, the time nodes when ETH’s market price reaches a new high can be divided into the following three categories:

The first category is possible in 2-3 years. Crypto KOL, Day1Global founder @RubyWang, crypto KOL, KiteAI CMO @0xLaughing believe that the new high of ETH price mainly depends on the new asset issuance method or new asset type that leads the market.
The second category is to wait for 5 years. @Starzq, the manager of Day1Global, believes that it is difficult to set a new high by relying solely on ETH. Only by relying on the liquidity overflow of BTC or the marginal innovation of the Ethereum ecosystem can this be achieved. @Freya of the Zhejiang University Blockchain Association believes that perhaps we can pin our hopes on community development or technological breakthroughs.
The third category, the time is unknown, mainly depends on the development of applications. @ArtistZhou, @33357xyz, @WONG_SSH, @0xPhiloA and others believe that the new high of ETH's market price depends on when the L2 that sucks ETH's blood will be killed, the implementation of technical roadmaps such as Based Rollup, and the mature applications after the NFT players, GameFi players and even DeFi players who took over at high positions are all washed off.

In addition, @Solomon_NAHHH believes that there is another possibility that the US ETH ETF can achieve a complete liquidation and sell-off, and then be taken over by the Eastern giant, which may have a certain possibility of hitting a new high.

@ConstantinGao, who holds a large amount of ETH short orders, pointed out that the main reason for the current unfavorable performance of ETH prices is the bankruptcy of narratives such as "digital oil" and "world computer". Ethereum has now become a block space rental business. After experiencing events such as L2 expansion, it has not only been sucked dry, but also the consumption cost has been further reduced, resulting in the value storage function of the token no longer being recognized by the market. In this regard, it is completely different from BTC, which focuses on the concept of "digital gold". After giving up its payment positioning, the market has accepted its latest positioning. In addition, he mentioned that although he is not optimistic about the price performance of ETH in the short term (2 to 3 years), judging from the past development stage of the Internet industry, Ethereum still has the potential for long-term development. Driven by mature applications, its token consumption demand may experience a huge growth from the early dial-up stage of the Internet to the stage of short videos and live streaming. By then, the price of ETH may be able to gradually reach a new high.

Summary: ETH is not irreplaceable, but it is still the main battlefield of encryption

Among the young faces, I saw many active in the ETH ecosystem. Although the price of ETH is sluggish, the ecosystem is highly decentralized, and there are still old investors and latecomers who stick to the Ethereum ecosystem. As for the price, only time will tell.