The mindset for buying ETH in this round is still stuck in the previous one, not keeping up with Web3 and failing to progress with the times. Buying ETH this round is like buying LTC or EOS in the last round, just old altcoins.

As more and more users enter the crypto space, ETH, as an application chain, has already fallen far behind the actual demand. It could barely be used in the last round, but in this round, it is basically unusable.

Furthermore, with POS staking and insufficient on-chain liquidity, once purchased on exchanges, users are just waiting to be diluted by POS. As an application chain, ETH's value must also be distributed to the applications on the chain, which in turn would create a positive feedback loop. Therefore, holding coins without participating in on-chain applications cannot capture value. Similarly, as an application chain, its performance cannot keep up with the growth of demand, leading to new public chains like SOL and SUI dividing the demand.

ETH is like A-shares, eternally at 3000, high gas fees raising the trading costs for retail investors, and the Ethereum Foundation, as a major shareholder, sells coins at zero cost to manipulate the market. Vitalik talks daily about layer 2, zk, and other grand narratives that do not benefit retail investors.