By George Ward
The success of Ethereum (ETH) has been strong, about the same as Bitcoin’s. But it has yet to do as well as other Layer-1 rivals like Polkadot, Solana, and Chainlink.
Ethereum’s Surging Popularity
According to crypto expert Michael van de Poppe, Ethereum’s popularity will not go down but rather rise for several reasons. While there was massive enthusiasm after Ethereum’s move from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, its full effects have not yet been seen.
However, the analyst forecasts that the underlying growth of the ecosystem will become more apparent in the coming year. Should this happen, it could make Ethereum deflationary and a more appealing investment than Bitcoin.
Like the expectations for a spot BTC ETF in the US, the analyst believes that the approval of a spot ETH ETF by the US SEC will trigger a strong bullish run for the leading altcoin. Furthermore, this approval means that decentralized applications (dApps) made on Ethereum can now be included in ETFs, causing increasing demand for the digital asset.
ETH’s Q1 Performance
Van de Poppe further notes that Ethereum has been underperforming compared to Bitcoin over the past few weeks due to negative investor bias. However, its price action has been natural and organic since BTC’s price movement is influenced partly by news surrounding its spot ETF approval.
However, he opined that Ethereum would experience similar fluctuations in price action when there are regular updates regarding a spot ETH ETF approval.
Whale With $26.4M In ETH Becomes Active Again, Community Responds
Meanwhile, popular on-chain tracker Whale Alert has reported that an Ethereum wallet recently became active after being inactive for over eight years. The tracking platform stated that this pre-mine Ethereum address holding 11,640 ETH hasn’t been used since late 2014 when the Ethereum team finished its initial coin offering.
Whale Alert further revealed that the whale had sent 500 ETH to an undisclosed wallet. Following the development, there have been mixed reactions from the cryptocurrency community.
In the past month, many Ethereum wallets that had been inactive for years became active again, selling lots of their ETH holdings. Some analysts opined that ETH’s recent price surge is a reason for these wallets’ re-activeness.
Earlier this month, ETH gained 10% and reclaimed the $2.38K price level. However, it has experienced a slight price correction and is now up 7.38%. Currently, ETH trades at $2,294 per Coingecko data. Amidst the huge volatility in the crypto market, the coin continues to trade above the $2,200 price level.
ETH Would Trade At $5K Soon – Arthur Hayes
Reports suggest that Arthur Hayes, the founder and former CEO of BitMex, has sold his Solana (SOL) stash and bought an unknown amount of Ethereum. His primary reason was that ETH would soon trade at $5K
Following Hayes’s ETH purchase announcement, on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain revealed via the X social media platform that an unnamed whale recently traded ETH and made a 433X profit. The analytics platform further stated that the whale sold 1 ETH to buy 293.8 million OMNI and then got 176 ETH back by selling it. Thus, they made a profit of $1 million within 24 hours and still have 155 million OMNI left.