After ten years of trials and tribulations, can Ethereum still welcome a "huge pump"?

Editor: TB, ChainCatcher

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Ethereum's birth.

In the past decade, it has supported the prosperity of DeFi and sparked the wave of NFTs. Countless developers and idealists have intersected, collided, and built on this chain, composing one crypto narrative after another.

But in this tenth year, Ethereum has reached a crossroads of fate. New public chains continue to emerge, the narrative dominance frequently shifts, and the price has lost momentum during a prolonged adjustment.

After ten years of trials and tribulations, can Ethereum still迎来一个巨大的「泵」?

Chips are tending to concentrate, is Ethereum undergoing a "change of hands"?

The notion of "changing the dealer" regarding Ethereum has actually been circulating since last year. There are viewpoints suggesting that early holders of ETH, the industry old-timers, are gradually exiting the scene, and the chips are quietly being taken over by institutions such as Wall Street. Is this transition genuinely happening, or is it just a story we tell ourselves?

According to on-chain analyst @Murphychen888, the Herfindahl index of ETH (which measures the concentration of holdings) has been continuously declining since 2016, indicating that the chips are being dispersed toward retail investors. It reached a bottom in March 2023, but suddenly started to rise again from December 2024, indicating that funds are being re-concentrated. Whether through active accumulation or passive replenishment, the actions of the whales are driving up the concentration.

Ethereum Herfindahl Index: This refers to the concentration of chips. A high index indicates that a few large holders are dominating the market, while a low index indicates a more even distribution of chips.

However, this is an extremely slow process, as some large holders are still continuously offloading their assets, reducing the concentration trend. Although this increase in concentration helps the price trend to improve in the future, the process is slow, which may result in a long and agonizing wait for market participants.

In addition, according to glassnode data, since the end of March, the "faithful buyers" RSI (Relative Strength Index) of ETH has consistently reached 80, while the selling pressure of loss-makers quickly cooled down after peaking in mid-April. This indicates that despite a significant price correction at one point, there are still steadfast buyers consistently taking over, which has not stopped since March 26.

RSI is used to measure market overbought or oversold conditions. It ranges from 0 to 100. Generally, RSI > 70 indicates overbought, while RSI < 30 indicates oversold.

There is still no conclusion on whether Ethereum is really "changing hands," but on-chain data shows a trend of chip re-concentration, which may be hiding long-term layouts by large funds and the steadfastness of belief buyers.

Ethereum "Heart Swap" Proposal: Execution Layer Expected to Undergo Major Upgrade

On April 20, Vitalik released a significant proposal to replace the current Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with the open-source instruction set architecture RISC-V as the long-term evolution direction for Ethereum Layer 1 execution.

According to the design, existing EVM contracts will continue to operate and achieve bidirectional compatibility with the new architecture. Core abstractions such as account models, cross-contract calls, and storage will also be fully retained. The original opcodes such as SLOAD, SSTORE, BALANCE, CALL, etc., will be mapped to RISC-V system calls. The new architecture supports writing contracts in languages like Rust, while also being compatible with existing languages like Solidity and Vyper, ensuring that the developer experience is largely unaffected.

If this direction comes true, it will completely change the way Ethereum smart contracts operate and lay a technological foundation for its scalability in the coming decades. Crypto KOL Dayu pointed out that if the proposal succeeds, the speed of the Ethereum mainnet could increase by 100 times, transaction fees could drop by more than a thousand times, and the value of Layer 2 may decline. Ethereum will directly challenge high-speed public chains like Solana and Sui, leveraging its advantages in decentralization and ecosystem accumulation, and will gain the wings of speed.

Despite the current risks such as community opposition faced by the proposal, its emergence has sent a strong signal: Ethereum is refocusing on the value of its mainnet. As community user @shmula commented, Vitalik's proposals have traditionally led to Ethereum Layer 1 being "abandoned," but this proposal is expected to reinject value into it.

The "default choice" of traditional finance?

Traditional institutions also seem to prefer Ethereum. One of the world's largest custody banks, BNY Mellon, recently launched an on-chain data tool called Digital Asset Data Insights on Ethereum, while BlackRock's tokenized fund BUIDL has also deployed over $2.3 billion on Ethereum.

Data: Defillama, BUIDL fund distribution across chains

Does this mean that traditional institutions are actively reaching out to the Ethereum ecosystem and starting to experiment around its security, transparency, and composability? Crypto KOL Blue Fox also proposed a forward-looking idea: will large financial institutions build their own L2 or private chains on top of the Ethereum security layer in the future?

The views of LXDAO founder brucexu.eth may provide us with some insights. He stated that some Hong Kong financial institutions and asset tokenization projects he recently came into contact with generally choose Ethereum as the underlying platform because, at this stage, it is almost the only preferred option. He pointed out: "In terms of functionality, Bitcoin lacks flexible scalability; in terms of stability and neutrality, financial institutions cannot accept public chains that may be subject to state intervention or face downtime risks; and emerging blockchains have not yet undergone the test of time and security, and their maturity still needs to be verified."

These early actions may just be a prologue. However, in the short term, whether Ethereum can realize value conversion is very important for the explosion of the application layer.

The ten thousand chains look up, or is the hero in decline?

Since the Ethereum Foundation changed its core team in February this year, and with the recent proposal to support the RISC-V virtual machine, Ethereum is showing a posture of "active correction." Ethereum Foundation Executive Director Tomasz K. Stańczak recently admitted that Ethereum's "secondary goal" is to become the preferred infrastructure for institutions, winning markets such as RWA and stablecoins.

The various trends are not pessimistic, and even on the technical side, there are signs of a turnaround. According to Trend Research analysis, ETH is at a critical position for support and resistance exchange, and if it breaks through, a favorable trend reversal may occur. ETH has experienced a long decline for 5 months since December 2024, with the number of profitable addresses dropping to a lower level in the bear market, remaining oversold. Currently, with the recovery of the overall cryptocurrency market, it has entered a critical support and resistance exchange zone.

Profit Address Data

Trend Research points out that multiple technical indicators also release potential bottoming signals. The K-line pattern of ETH, moving averages, MACD, Momentum, RSI, and MFI all indicate the possibility of a short-term reversal between bulls and bears. The current price is also approaching the upper edge of the descending channel and horizontal resistance level, attempting to break through.

Ethereum seems to be entering its "critical window period", but as the Chinese saying goes, "Before considering victory, one must first consider defeat". Even if the situation shows a glimmer of hope, it is inevitable to ask: what if it ultimately fails? If these efforts still struggle to break through performance bottlenecks, if ecological development stagnates, or if price confidence cannot be regained, will Ethereum become the "doomsday vehicle" of the new era?

Ten years is not only a milestone in time but also a test of faith. The wheels of the era roll forward; when successful, all chains look up in admiration, but when defeated, heroes fade into twilight.