The fall of Ethereum: Why short selling ETH is the top strategy for 2025

Ethereum is one of the worst performing assets in the crypto market in terms of recent yield dynamics. According to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, betting on the decline of ETH remains the best strategy in 2025. To do this, two exchange-traded funds can be used, short selling the digital asset with leverage to increase potential earnings. Why is Ethereum becoming cheaper? Two ETFs provide an alternative solution for short selling Ethereum with 2x leverage, securing the first and second positions in the ranking of the highest-performing funds of the year according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Balchunas reported this on his Twitter page. Here is a relevant quote from Cointelegraph: “The best ETFs this year are two exchange-traded funds, ETHD and ETQ. Their returns since the beginning of the year are 247.3% and 219.19%, respectively.” According to Balchunas, investors who still believe in Ethereum’s growth are facing the “difficult” consequences of betting on the rise of this altcoin. The price has fallen 52% since the beginning of 2025 and 35% over the past six months. Therefore, buying ETH over the past year has not been the most profitable idea. Both ETFs use financial derivative instruments to track the inverse momentum of Ethereum’s price with double the volatility of the underlying asset. However, such exchange-traded funds do not always accurately replicate the behavior of the assets they are based on. Nevertheless, Ethereum remains the most popular blockchain network with a total value locked of (TVL) at 46 billion dollars. However, the long-term yield of ETH began to fall starting from March 2024. At that time, the Dencun update was activated in the altcoin network to reduce costs for users, but it resulted in a decrease in revenue for validators from transaction fees by about 95%. The revenue of the validator network remains low primarily due to difficulties in monetizing second-level solutions (L2), which are processing an increasing number of transactions in the Ether ecosystem. For example, in the last week of March, according to analysts, this network only earned 3.18 ETH in transaction fees from the L2 blockchains Arbitrum and Base. To restore commission revenue to pre-Dencun levels, trading volume on the L2 blockchain will need to increase by more than 22,000 times. This was stated by Michael Nadeau, the founder of The DeFi Report. Smart contract platforms, including Ethereum and Solana, have shown a general decline in activity in the first quarter of 2025. The decline in the indicators reflects a cooling in investor sentiment after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed significant tariffs. How is Bitcoin used in life? Meanwhile, the basic adoption of Bitcoin makes digital assets a useful tool in the real world. For example, Lomond School in Scotland will begin accepting Bitcoin payments for tuition starting in the fall semester of 2025. This becomes the first school in England to implement this. The adoption of cryptocurrency is part of the school’s plan to integrate the principles of “sound money” from the Austrian School of Economics into the school’s curriculum. According to the school’s representatives, this way, students are prepared for an uncertain future. Bitcoin can be accessible to anyone who wants to learn, making it more democratic and inclusive, especially for those in developing countries without access to traditional banking services. Lomond sees Bitcoin as a great practical example for studying economics, computer science, ethics, and innovation. The school has no plans to accept other types of cryptocurrencies and will immediately convert BTC into fiat currency. However, in the future, the school may create its own cryptocurrency reserve fund, with prospects depending on the results of the experiment. According to sources, Bitcoin has become part of the curriculum at some schools and universities. Some of these schools have also implemented a strategy to form a national crypto reserve fund to protect assets from the impact of inflation on purchasing power. For example, in 2022, the University of Cincinnati added courses on cryptocurrency to its curriculum to teach students how to interact with Bitcoin and emerging Web3 technologies. Bitcoin has also been integrated into El Salvador’s school education system as part of the Mi Primer Bitcoin program in 2023. Remember that the government of this country made BTC a legal payment method in September 2021. In July 2024, the University of Wyoming established the Bitcoin Research Institute to conduct peer-reviewed research on cryptocurrency. In February 2025, the University of Austin announced that the school’s endowment fund had allocated 5 million dollars to invest in BTC. This fund manages assets worth approximately 200 million dollars. Despite the fall of Ethereum and the growing popularity of ETFs for short selling digital assets, interest in the practical application of cryptocurrencies continues to rise. This is confirmed by initiatives from educational institutions betting on Bitcoin as a tool for the future. Therefore, the development of the crypto market will clearly continue.