‘Revenge of the ETH’ — Is Ethereum’s 9% jump the start of something big?

The price of Ethereum is finally ticking up after months of being outperformed by other altcoins and alternative layer-1 blockchain networks.
Tom Mitchelhill
Posted by Tom Mitchelhill December 28, 2023 2 Mins Read
The price of Ethereum is finally ticking up after months of being outperformed by other altcoins and alternative layer-1 blockchain networks.

After being drastically outperformed by Solana (SOL) for the past three months, the price of Ether (ETH)  suddenly spiked 8.9% in the last 24 hours, leading to some bullish sentiment returning to Ethereum.

“The revenge of the ETH is starting,” wrote Jordi Alexander, the chief investment officer at Selini Capital, in a Dec. 27 post to X (formerly Twitter).

Alexander pointed to a recent rally across several altcoins and Michael Saylor buying another $615 million worth of Bitcoin on Dec. 26 as solid foundations for ETH to make an upside move over the next few weeks.

“The risk/reward on Ether is so compelling here, that I see a liquidity black hole now forming in January,” he added.

Pseudonymous trader Pentoshi added his bullish target for Ether, posting a semi-cryptic chart to X with an approximate price target of $3,485.

“Slowly, then all at once,” he added.

The conflict between community members from the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems reached a fever pitch over the last few weeks.

While Ether has gained 102% year-to-date, its price performance has been dwarfed by that of Solana, which has posted a whopping 951% gain since the beginning of this year, per TradingView data.

Ether’s 102% gain was dwarfed by Solana’s staggering 951% year-to-date rally. Source: TradingView

This outsized price performance, along with a tidal wave of relative on-chain activity, led many to assert that the networks’ lower fees and faster settlement times made it the superior blockchain when compared to Ethereum.

Related: Does Bitcoin's dominance drop hint at full-blown altcoin season?

On the other hand, Ethereum backers claimed that the networks’ architecture was more suited to larger entities conducting business on-chain and pointed to layer-2 scaling solutions like Optimism and Arbitrum as examples of cheaper fees on ETH.

At the time of publication, ETH is changing hands for $2,417, up 8.9% in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, Solana has taken a breather from its recent upward tear, trading at $104 — a loss of 4.2% in the last day.

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