The Future of Ethereum: There Are Many Opportunities and Challenges

Ethereum is the big brother in the cryptocurrency circle, relying on smart contracts and decentralized applications, it has consistently held the second position in cryptocurrency market capitalization. However, now it finds itself at a crossroads, and the road ahead does not look very promising.
From the market performance, Ethereum seems a bit "lackluster." The total market value is $216 billion, but the market share has dropped to 7.4%, widening the gap with Bitcoin. The scale of Ethereum spot ETFs has hit a historical low, with institutions and large holders frantically selling, even the "ancient wallets" that have been dormant for years are coming out to sell coins. The number of new and active users has significantly decreased, and trading fees have also dropped, indicating a clear decline in enthusiasm.
Technically, Ethereum has also faced a lot of criticism. There are significant disagreements within the community, such as with the EIP-1559 reform, where some people think it's good while others are dissatisfied. The effects of subsequent upgrades have also been less than satisfactory; the core developers did not expect so few users currently. Although the Layer 2 scaling solutions aim to solve problems, they have brought new issues of centralization and ecological fragmentation. In fact, there is still a lot of room for optimization at the Ethereum base layer, but the team is too conservative and dares not to easily try new technologies.
However, Ethereum is not without opportunities. In the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, it is still the leader, although the total locked value has dropped from 100 billion dollars last year to 65 billion dollars, it is still significantly higher than its competitors Solana and BNB Chain.
In terms of technological upgrades, Ethereum is also brewing major moves. The Pectra upgrade may be delayed, but if it succeeds, it could greatly enhance performance; if the PCRA upgrade materializes, wallet and Gas fees might become history, and user experience would take off directly. Vitalik Buterin also proposed using RISC-V to replace the Ethereum Virtual Machine, and if that happens, execution efficiency could increase by 100 times, transaction fees would be significantly reduced, and complex functions could be easily realized, although this might take two to three years.
The future of Ethereum is hard to say. If it can smoothly complete the technical upgrades, resolve regulatory issues, and unite the community, there is a chance to return to its peak; but if these troubles cannot be solved, it may very well be overtaken by competitors.
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