Bitcoin and meme coins ruled 2024, but ethereum bulls are ready for 2025

Ethereum looks ready for its big moment. 

Bitcoin’s and meme coins ruled the crypto space in 2024, ending with a bang. But now, following what many see as a mediocre year for the second-largest crypto by market cap, analysts say 2025 is ethereum’s time to shine and they expect the coin to hit $10,000. 

That’d represent quite a shift for the altcoin. Ethereum’s all-time high of $4,878 dates to November 2021, and it’s up “only” 80% in the past year. In contrast, bitcoin reached an all-time high of over $108,000 on December 17, and is up 153% in the past year. Messari, a market-intelligence company, said in its “Crypto Theses 2025” report that ether ranked 14th in year-to-date market-cap performance among coins with a market cap over $10 billion.

That’s despite several notable wins this year, like the approval of spot ETH exchange-traded funds. Understanding why ethereum underperformed in relation to other coins in a crypto bull market could help paint a picture for the year ahead.

Ethereum’s headwinds 

Bitcoin and ethereum are often discussed in the same breath, but they have different narratives that reflect different purposes. 

While many view bitcoin as “digital gold,” ethereum’s selling point has revolved around its potential as a technology platform. This differentiator can make it a more difficult sell than bitcoin (or meme coins).

“Investors coming into crypto have often started with BTC before moving into ETH because this ‘tech platform’ narrative is more complex and requires taking a view on long-term adoption,” said Andrew O’Neill, a digital-assets managing director at S&P Global Ratings.

Ethereum also faced regulatory headwinds, primarily with the SEC and a lack of clarity around staking. But thanks to an incoming crypto-friendly presidential administration in the US, that could change, boosting the appeal of ethereum ETFs (and the underlying asset’s price). That’s because staking essentially involves locking up coins and earning rewards in return for helping to secure the blockchain. Right now, US spot ethereum ETFs aren’t allowed to stake the coins they hold, meaning investors could lose out on revenue opportunities if they choose to park their cash in ethereum ETFs. 

Today, 72% of the total supply of ETH is unstaked, according to Coinbase. 

This legal barrier could help explain what until recently has been a relatively tepid adoption of ethereum ETFs (compared to bitcoin ETFs, which were approved in January). But sentiment has changed since the presidential election, and ETH ETFs have recorded four straight weeks of inflows, as of December 17, according to SosoValue. 

To put that in context, these funds now have about $14 billion in total net assets, while bitcoin ETFs have a whopping $122.6 billion.

Bill Hughes, senior counsel and director of global regulatory affairs at Consensys, told Sherwood News that he anticipates 2025 will bring further policy movement concerning staking, taxation, and treatment of rewards — “which will be positive for the space and ETH in particular.”

Hughes said the regulatory shift could benefit ethereum in lots of ways. 

“We are going to see a meaningful movement toward recognizing that infrastructure for blockchains like ETH — validators and block proposers — are really internet infrastructure,” he said. 

He added that there will be growing consensus around policies that recognize that crypto infrastructure’s not a financial intermediary “but really more a plumbing that makes this new web3 internet work.”

Other market participants echoed the sentiment, including Grayscale head of research Zach Pandl, who told Sherwood that he expects regulators to clarify guidance around proof-stake technologies (like ETH) and staking activity. 

“This would allow more mainstream and legacy institutions to engage with ethereum and other proof-of-stake chains,” Pandl said. 

Battle of the chains

Ethereum faced stiff competition this year from rival blockchains looking to eat its lunch. 

solana, which bills itself as cheaper and faster than ethereum, has a meme-friendly culture that drew “crypto degens” in droves. Solana had an explosive year, up 204%, according to CoinGecko, and the anticipation around Sol ETFs has further buoyed the asset. 

“Products like pump.fun have created over 3 million tokens this year alone on the solana blockchain, driving decentralized exchange volume on solana to surpass ethereum at times,” Luke Nolan, a research associate at CoinShares, told Sherwood.

Nolan said that ethereum developers have taken a long-term view of improving the protocol, while solana has focused on capturing attention and demand now.

ETH bulls are pumped

The domino effect of a crypto-friendly administration could make next year the year for ethereum. The approval of ETF staking could enable asset managers to start staking the more than $8 billion in ETH that is sitting idle, Jesper Johansen, the CEO of Northstake, said.

“I predict that the price of ETH will hit $10,000 in 2025,” Johansen said, adding that staking will be the foundation for new fixed-income products and financial services. 

“In 2025, we will see the first ‘Internet Bond’ based on ethereum staking yield, effectively giving millions of people access to real DeFi yields,” he said. 

While challenges remain, some experts see a new all-time high materializing early in the new year thanks to the shift in investor sentiment and the fact that ethereum is one of the few large-cap coins that have yet to reach an all-time high this cycle.

CoinShares’ Nolan said, “If the market remains with solid momentum, I would expect ETH to reach a new all-time high sometime between February and March.”

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy is a financial journalist who’s written for Dow Jones, The Financial Times Group, and Business Insider, among others.