Analysts have pointed out the sorry state of Ethereum’s performance, which has not lived up to the bullish expectations of hitting $8000 or $10,000. Despite the hype surrounding ETH and significant developments such as Merge in 2022, ETH is currently languishing at 3,225.46.

Many have question this under performance by ETH. Some have questioned whether Ethereum will even reach the $5000 mark or not. Regardless of that, let’s try to uncover the reasons why Ethereum will not pump in 2025.

The Growing Gap Between Bitcoin and Ethereum

Ethereum’s price performance record is proof that things are not that great.

Bitcoin stole the show in 2024, surging by an impressive 121%.

So, what was Ethereum doing? – ETH only went up by 46% in that same period.

The reason? - The difference in the popularity of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. Bitcoin ETFs have been taking off in the States, attracting investments close to $35 billion. On the other hand, Ethereum ETFs only attracted $2.66 billion.

Decline in Active Validators

Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research has pointed out a very important statistic – there has been a 1% drop in active validators on the Ethereum network over the past month.

This shouldn’t be taken lightly, and there are growing concerns about a potential increase of unstaking. There are also fears of a lack of substantial demand apart from staking.

Recent Network Upgrades

Ethereum’s recent network upgrades have also been criticized from several quarters.

Ethereum introduced the Duncan upgrade back in March. The main purpose was to decrease gas fees and increase transaction capacity.

However, the timing wasn’t right according to many. The update simply came too late to capitalize on the meme coin frenzy taking place at that time. As a result, competitors like Solana swooped in to fill the void.

There are legitimate criticisms on its upcoming upgrade “Pectra”, scheduled for 2025. Out of the 19 past upgrades in Ethereum’s lifetime, only two had any notable impact on its price, with both of them occurring when Bitcoin was on a bull run.

What Analysts Think About Ethereum’s Disappointing Price Performance?

Let’s take a look at how ETH performed in the last couple of years.

ï January 2023: Ethereum started the year at around $1,200.

ï December 2023: Ethereum ended the year at about $1,800.

ï January 2024: Ethereum began the year at around $1,800.

ï December 2024: It saw significant fluctuations, reaching a high of $4,000 in December before settling at around $3,600 by the end of the year.

As it stands, traders are split on ETH like a house divided. Cold Blooded Schiller, the pseudonymous oracle of crypto thinks that Ethereum can go either of two way – A “sweep” to the upside or a decline to the $3000 zone. Others think that Ethereum can either rocket past $3550 and reach $4000 or decline straight to $3102.

Others, such as Michael van de Poppe, founder of MN Capital, are optimistic. According to him, the ETH/BTC ratio is going to soar above 0.04 by January 2025.

All of this proves that the expectation of some that Ethereum will hit the $8000 to $10000 mark was driven more by hype and speculation rather than fundamentals.

Conclusion

Ethereum is failing to explode in 2025 for various reasons not limited to market maturity, competition and unmet speculative expectations.  Analysts have put together multiple reasons for Ethereum failing to reach this target. The chances of Ethereum even reaching $5000 in 2025 are slim.