A Messari analyst sparked heated debate over the weekend after declaring Ethereum is “dying” as community income declined in August.
In an X publish on Saturday, a Messari analysis supervisor, AJC, acknowledged, “Ethereum’s fundamentals are collapsing,” as Ethereum’s income from charges in August was $39.2 million, down over 40% year-over-year and roughly 20% month-over-month.
However many who learn the publish disagreed, pointing to Ethereum’s rising metrics, app income, stablecoin provide, continued L2 scaling and a distinction between Ethereum being a commodity, moderately than a tech inventory — which means it shouldn’t be valued based mostly on income.
Ethereum continues to be a vibrant ecosystem
A big a part of Ethereum’s fall in income has come on account of the Dencun improve in March 2024, which lowered transaction charges for layer-2 scaling networks utilizing it as a base layer to publish transactions.
Talking to Cointelegraph, Henrik Andersson, chief funding officer of funding agency Apollo Crypto, mentioned it’s unlikely Ethereum is dying, as a result of information from Ethereum L2s analytics device growthepie exhibits it’s nonetheless “a vibrant ecosystem with stablecoin provide, throughput, and energetic addresses are all at or near all-time excessive.”
As of Aug. 30, there have been additionally over 552,000 day by day energetic addresses on Ethereum in response to funding analysis platform YCharts, representing a 21% improve for the reason that identical time in 2024.
“We imagine each Ethereum and Bitcoin have a spot in a crypto portfolio,” Andersson mentioned.
“Ethereum is turning into the impartial decentralized base layer for finance and identical to Bitcoin will not be valued on income however as a retailer of worth, we don’t imagine Ethereum will be valued solely on its income.”
In response to critics, nevertheless, AJC defended his use of income to worth the layer-1 blockchain, explaining that as a result of it’s collected in Ether (ETH), one of many largest historic demand drivers of consumption is now “trending towards zero.”
On the identical time, AJC argued that energetic addresses and transactions are “meaningless statistics because it pertains to demand.”
Ethereum has been declared “useless” 40 instances this yr
Ethereum has been declared by varied sources a minimum of 150 instances since 2014; most of those deaths have been recorded this yr, with about 40, in response to Ethereum Obituaries.
Ryan McMillin, chief funding officer at Merkle Tree Capital, advised Cointelegraph that Ethereum continues to adapt and is mostly declared useless in moments of narrative weak spot, falling charges, transaction trending decrease, or when rivals outpace it.
He mentioned that in concept, as a result of sensible contracts are a aggressive sector, builders and capital might slowly however completely migrate elsewhere.
“However in follow, its developer neighborhood, entrenched DeFi protocols, and regulatory acceptance give it extra endurance than the obituaries recommend; its present narrative is it is going to be the TradFi chain of selection, though the SOL ETF could disrupt that too,” McMillin mentioned.
“The larger story is that crypto is maturing into an ecosystem of differentiated property, and Ethereum will stay one of many central items for years to come back, and competitors with different L1s may be very wholesome.”
McMillin mentioned he doesn’t assume Ethereum is “dying,” however mentioned it has been caught in a “troublesome spot” for almost two years as a result of it’s trapped between Bitcoin’s narrative as digital gold and Solana’s pitch because the quicker, cheaper different.
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“Ethereum’s ultra-sound cash framing was by no means going to win in opposition to Bitcoin’s tougher financial premium, and with regards to throughput and value, Solana merely gives magnitudes of enchancment,” he mentioned.
One space that has helped Etherum in 2025 is its spot exchange-traded funds, which unlocked conventional finance flows and positioned Ether as a levered play on stablecoin adoption and community development, in response to McMillin.
“However that benefit could not final lengthy, spot Solana ETFs are anticipated within the coming weeks, which might shortly degree the enjoying subject for mainstream capital inflows.”
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