Several base-layer blockchain cryptocurrencies that compete with Ethereum—because they are optimized for smart contracts and open-source currency issuance—rallied further up their price charts than ETH during the US election rally. Even Bitcoin gains beat Ether’s on this turn of the markets.

For the 30 days ending Friday, Nov. 22, Bitcoin’s price gained 47%. Meanwhile, Sui Coin (SUI) jumped by 74%, Solana by 56%, and Polkdadot (DOT) rose by 44%, according to data compiled by TradingView. Ether came up short of these DeFi competitors with a 25% increase for the period.

Even though the price of Ether on crypto exchanges marked $3,450 on Saturday, some investors are nervous about its prospects of reaching the $4,000 level by the peak of this crypto macrocycle.

In addition to concerns over the Ethereum platform’s overgrown, mutable code base and byzantine architecture, some analysts have expressed bearish worries about the Ether economy’s fundamentals.

Here’s one of crypto’s greatest tragedies:

Bitcoin, the most stable chain for long-term financial services, lacks the technical chops to provide them.

Ethereum, a chain with the tech to do it, is too mutable and complicated for anything besides gambling.

BOS fixes this. pic.twitter.com/9xPyLgHDER

— Yago (@EdanYago) November 22, 2024

Amberdata’s Director of Derivatives Greg Magadini, for example, said in a note to clients that “ETH faces serious headwinds as the value proposition of ‘sound money’ … has flipped to inflation supply as nearly all DeFi transactions are being executed on L2s … I believe that’s drastically dragging prices down.”

While ETH became a deflationary currency on Sept, 15, 2022, deflation has slowed in 2024 with the proliferation of currency onto Ethereum Layer-2 services. Though it hasn’t really slowed by much on the multi-year time scale.

1. Bullish: ETH/BTC Ratio Tur