Financial Times (ft.com) recently claimed that Ethereum was facing a “midlife crisis” with rivals playing catch-up. Writer Philip Stafford reported on the price of ether (ETH) slumping 40% over the last three months.
The ether token is the most widely used in financial markets, but has dropped along with the wider crypto market after the surge that followed President Trump’s election.
Is Ethereum really facing a “midlife crisis” and how is the Ethereum price faring compared to other currencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL)?
Ether is “underperforming” Due to Several Factors
FT reported on Ether’s underperformance compared to other tokens. Investors “once flocked” to ether, which “promised to shake up the financial system”.
But according to observers such as Carol Alexander, professor of finance at the University of Sussex, Ethereum supporters’ vision of decentralized finance (DeFi) “looks much further away now than a year ago.”
Adam McCathy, a research analyst at the data provider Kaiko, says, “Ethereum is just not interesting to most people”, explaining that Bitcoin’s “digital gold narrative” is often more exciting than Ethereum’s feats of engineering. McCarthy pointed to the abundance of competitors in the “attention economy.”
Traders were said to have been “disappointed” after the Trump administration did not make significant purchases of Ether to form part of its strategic crypto reserve (which also includes XRP and Cardano).
David Lawant, head of research at a crypto prime broker, said Ethereum had lost ground in “the native space” (referring to investors and capital that originated from the crypto ecosystem, rather than traditional finance). Lawant also said that “it’s not got a lot of traction from the ETF crowd”.
These two pools of capital are distinct. ETF capital is traditional investment entering the crypto space via regulated, mainstream vehicles like Exchange Traded Funds. This typically comes from more conventional investors.
Crypto native capital comes from individuals or institutions that were engaged with crypto from the beginning. For Ethereum, these two main pools of capital are drying up.
Meanwhile, Alexander, the university professor, says the activity in DeFi projects using Ethereum is exaggerated, with trades counted multiple times.
She also said “Decision-making has become a bit of a shambles” at the Ethereum Foundation, with developers arguing over the blockchain’s direction.
A “mid-life crisis”?
FT also quoted Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research. Kendrick was responsible for the “midlife crisis” claim, and said that Ethereum developers’ decision to hand over the transaction processing to third parties was in effect giving “value away for free”. Kendrick said, “Ethereum has essentially commoditised itself.”
Stafford noted that Ethereum supporters say the platform has the best community of developers and that co-founder Vitalik Buterin is working on new networks to help manage the volume of trades.
Simon Forster of broker TP ICAP said Ethereum and ether were among the crypto assets that were “a harder sell” with nobody knowing “which of these decentralised networks will emerge as dominant.”
Ether in Comparison with Bitcoin
At the start of the year, bitcoin was trading below $100,000, having dipped from its surge in December 2024. But the market regained momentum and by May, the BTC price had rebounded above $100,000.
In early March, H.C. Wainwright was expecting the Bitcoin price to reach $225,000 by the end of this year. Investors.com writer Harrison Miller noted that such a price would imply a market cap of $4.5 trillion, approximately 25% of the market cap of gold.
Institutional activity has played a big role in Bitcoin’s price movements. Strategy, led by Michael Saylor, bought $1.3 billion in BTC last December. The coin was trading at an average price of $99,856.
However, on May 16, Reuters reported on several “high-profile asset managers” cutting their stakes in spot bitcoin ETFs.
Matt Hougan, a chief investment officer, said that the first quarter of 2025 saw a “collapse of the premium” that people paid for bitcoin futures, and that set up a lucrative basis trade. Hougan said the premium’s “nadir” was around late-March, so he wasn’t surprised “to see hedge funds trim their holdings.”
More recent bitcoin price predictions have the token hitting 130,000 before June (changelly.com), and $207,000 in 2026 (cryptonews.com).
Writer Leon Waters noted several factors that had shifted bitcoin’s price, including Trump’s April announcement of a tariff policy update before more changes and confusion in the following weeks.
In March, the Trump administration announced the US strategic bitcoin reserve and digital asset stockpile, which includes ether, prompting a temporary price boost for both currencies.
Summing up
Ethereum faces significant challenges as it navigates through a “midlife crisis”. While bitcoin rebounds above $100,000 with ambitious price predictions for 2026, ether struggles with identity issues, competition, and declining interest from traditional and crypto-native investors.
Ethereum has the strongest development community, but the decision to outsource transaction processing has been criticised.
With the crypto landscape shifting, particularly under Trump’s crypto-friendly policies, Ethereum’s future may depend on whether it can recapture investor interest and solidify its value as a unique asset.
The next 12 months may be critical for Ethereum as it effectively evolves and adapts, or risks being overtaken by other blockchains and currencies that better align with investors’ expectations.