Ethereum Fights to Stay Relevant as Bitcoin and Solana Surge

Ethereum Faces Growing Competition as Bitcoin Dominates, But Vitalik Buterin Bets on Wall Street Push
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Ethereum Struggles to Keep Up with Bitcoin, But Vitalik Buterin Bets on Wall Street Push

Ethereum, once seen as Bitcoin’s main rival in the cryptocurrency space, has faced challenges in keeping pace with Bitcoin’s recent surge, despite being home to the second-largest digital asset, Ether. Over the past year, Bitcoin has risen around 160%, while Ether has only gained 45%.

In a bid to regain momentum, Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation are backing a new startup, Etherealize, aimed at marketing Ether as the ideal cryptocurrency for Wall Street. The company, founded by former bond trader Vivek Raman, has received investments from Buterin and the foundation, though the specific funding details were not disclosed. Raman, along with a team of eight employees, started operations in New York this month, where they are working to make Ethereum more appealing to financial institutions by creating tools that will simplify the network’s use for banks.

Raman believes this is the perfect time for Ethereum to gain traction, with regulatory, technological, and institutional factors now aligning in its favor. “If there’s any time it’s going to work, it’s now,” Raman said, pointing to Ethereum’s readiness for institutional adoption.

Launched in 2015 by Buterin and his team, Ethereum quickly established itself as a more sophisticated alternative to Bitcoin. Ethereum’s blockchain introduced the concept of smart contracts, which allow for complex financial transactions to be executed automatically. During the cryptocurrency booms in 2017 and 2021, Ethereum saw its price soar much faster than Bitcoin.

However, in the current market, Ethereum has struggled to keep up with the growing popularity of Bitcoin as a store of value, often likened to digital gold. This trend gained further momentum when President Donald Trump proposed the creation of a national strategic Bitcoin reserve last summer. Bitcoin ETFs, launched in early 2024, made it even easier for investors to treat Bitcoin as a digital investment. In comparison, while Ether ETFs were approved in July, they currently hold only about 10% of the assets of Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S.

Ethereum has also faced increasing competition from memecoins, projects with little practical use but significant retail investor interest. Ethereum was the birthplace of many early meme projects, but creators are now flocking to Solana, an alternative blockchain that has evolved quickly. The Trump family’s recent launch of the $TRUMP and $MELANIA coins on Solana is a prime example of this shift. Over the past year, Solana has outpaced both Ethereum and Bitcoin in price growth.

Ethereum’s critics have pointed out that Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation have not done enough to capitalize on the network’s early advantage. In response, Buterin recently promised “large changes” to the foundation’s structure and goals.

Raman hopes that by focusing on tokenization—the process of turning traditional financial products into digital tokens—he can help Ethereum attract more institutional interest. Financial institutions, he says, value safety, security, and reliability, and Ethereum is the blockchain that has stood the test of time, with a decade of operating history and some regulatory clarity.

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