There are plenty of reasons to make jokes about Efirium right now. Even if we forget about not the best behaviour of the ETH rate over the last year, yesterday the creator of the blockchain Vitalik Buterin reminded about himself. He decided to sing at the TOKEN2049 cryptocurrency conference in Singapore.

What will happen to the rate of Etherium?

The day before, the price of ETH in Bitcoin fell to its minimum for the last three years, that is, below 0.04 BTC. The local minimum of the indicator turned out to be the line 0.03833 on the Binance exchange.

Hourly chart of the exchange rate of Efirium against Bitcoin on the Binance exchange

The rate of drawdown of this indicator was surprising, as it has fallen by 27 per cent since the beginning of the year. This means that BTC has been a noticeably better investment in this timeframe.

Graph of the ratio of ETH to BTC exchange rate over the last year

That is, 2024 has already turned out to be not the best year for Efirium. Since the beginning of the year, the ETH rate has grown by 0.19 percent, which means it has remained virtually unchanged.

Over the past six months, the entire market has experienced a fairly noticeable correction, but Bitcoin has ultimately appreciated by 40 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Changes in the exchange rate of Efirium against the dollar from the beginning of 2024

In comparison, the altcoin Solana, which has gained a lot of popularity as a platform for HYIP meme tokens, has a year-to-date gain in value of 36 per cent. Meanwhile, on a year-to-date scale, the cryptocurrency is up 591 per cent.

Solana SOL exchange rate changes over the last year

In a statement to Bitwise customers, Hogan acknowledged that there is a “heavy vibe” around Etherium. Still, buying an asset that has barely grown in a year isn’t a good idea.

Plus, there’s growing pressure on ETH from its closest competitors in the industry right now. Here’s an expert commentary cited by The Block.

In crypto, it’s considered cool to be a proponent of Solana and other new blockchains, and to heckle Efirium because the technology behind it is supposedly older and more expensive.


Until recently, it was indeed expensive to use Etherium, as the same token exchanges on decentralised exchanges in Ethos could easily be valued in the tens and hundreds of dollars. However, in mid-March, the blockchain received the Dencun update, which noticeably reduced commissions in Ethereum-based second-level networks like Base and Arbitrum, causing users to switch to such chains en masse.

As a result, the day before, the cost of gas on the Eth network was at the level of 1 gwei. Thus, ordinary cryptocurrency transfers cost a few cents. However, a year ago, interacting with this blockchain was really costing a serious amount of money.


The cost of gas on the Etherium network in mid-August

Despite the fact that spot ETFs for Efirium were approved in the US in July, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) still considers ETH a security, Hogan noted.

If Kamala Harris wins the US presidential election in November and continues the Biden administration’s sceptical stance on cryptocurrencies, Efirium could face ongoing regulatory challenges, he said.

Bitwise investment director Matt Hogan

The spot Ethereum ETFs themselves, including Bitwise’s ETHW, have also had mixed results compared to their Bitcoin-based counterparts. Net inflows of $2.1 billion from recently launched funds were outpaced by net outflows of $2.8 billion from Grayscale’s ETHE fund.

Spot ETFs based on Efirium

Meanwhile, ETH-based spot exchange traded funds recorded a net outflow of $9.7 million over the past 24 hours.

Inflows and outflows from spot Efirium ETFs in the US

According to Hogan, and while all of these issues are affecting sentiment and prices, investors aren’t taking into account the larger meaning. For example, Efirium and Solana are trying to create a “public computer” for decentralised applications. However, it is Ethos-based initiatives that have achieved “breakthrough success” in this application area over the long term.

Such an argument seems unfair. After all, the Solana network was launched in March 2020, while Etherium began operations in July 2015. Accordingly, the difference between the time of existence of these blockchains is still greater than the period since the launch of SOL.

As the expert notes, the US Treasury bond fund BlackRock with more than $500 million under management is tokenised on Efirium, Nike’s NFT platform also runs on Efirium.

ETH has the most active developers, more users, has a regulated futures and ETF market, and a market capitalisation that is five times that of its nearest competitor. The Bitwise spokesperson continues.

It’s like Microsoft among blockchains. Everyone wants to talk about Google, Slack and Zoom, and for good reason – each has brought a life-changing technology to market. But Microsoft is still bigger than all of them combined.

Etherium and other cryptocurrencies

That’s not to say that Bitwise’s investment director is negative about Solana or other blockchains, though. In Hogan’s opinion, too many people are overlooking the already established success of Etherium. In addition, when paired with BTC, the ETH rate will sooner or later find its bottom. Accordingly, in the long term, the cryptocurrency may not be the worst choice, the analyst believes.


Matt Hogan's point of view seems logical, as Efirium continues to be the largest platform for NFT and applications from the sphere of decentralised finance. However, that doesn't mean it will continue to be that way forever. On top of that, ETH has grown by 43 per cent over the past year, while Solana SOL has given away almost 600 per cent growth. And to turn a blind eye to this, declaring the possible prospects of the Eth cryptocurrency in view of its previous merits, is trivially impossible.