$ETH From the king of the last cycle to being looked down upon in this round, is it because the fundamentals have worsened, or is it just below expectations?

I believe everyone should have their own answers to some extent, and the truth is indeed very cruel:

1) Below expectations, this is a fact.

Funds are always forgiving at first and harsh later regarding new narratives. The DeFi boom of the last cycle allowed the market to see Ethereum's potential to support economic and financial activities for the first time. At that time, Ethereum was talking about a utopia of a new economy on-chain, and people envisioned ETH would become the 'blood and oil' of the future economy.

But in this cycle, what the market wants is real adoption, broader scenarios, and genuine value capture, beyond DeFi. Whether it is NFT, RWA, AI, Gaming, Meme, or anything else, whether it is a black cat or a white cat, the good cat is the one that can capture 'real-world money' and 'real-world users.'

Ethereum just looked coldly at it and then continued to focus on the technical route and its ideals, detached from the application path and commercial closed loop of the real world. Even the 'scalability' story that started back in 2017 is still years away from real implementation today. Capital doesn't care how difficult the journey is or how far it goes, it only cares about results. After talking about this for so many years, it's still the same; capital will only coldly ask, 'So what?'

2) Fundamentals have not improved, and may have worsened.

If we look at Ethereum's TVL and on-chain fees, we find that they have not returned to the highs of 2020-2021. We can say that Ethereum's L2 strategy has diverted data and activities from the mainnet, but currently, the value of L2 for ETH still mostly remains at the 'brand' and 'mindshare' level - it has consolidated the position of EVM but has not yet brought equivalent value accumulation, and has even greatly reduced the token burning that should have occurred on the mainnet. What? Saying that L2 will be good in the long run? Fine, let's wait until it really becomes good before reevaluating. The capital market will not price 'things that have not yet been seen.'

3) Capital: 'Don't think too highly of yourself.'

The launch of the ETH ETF means that it has entered the global dollar capital pool. But this pool is a buyer's market, with too many assets, and ETH is not the only one. The funds in this pool are simple and brutal:

- You say you are right? Then please prove me wrong with results.

- What reason do I have to buy from you?

The more realistic view is: if ETH's fundamentals have not yet returned to the levels of 2020-2021, and on-chain activities and global dollar liquidity are far from what they were then, is the reason the price can be higher than that time simply due to the liquidity premium of the ETF? Or are we hoping for 'the market not to crash'? But when you can't even control your own fate and can only rely on others, you've actually already lost. It is not difficult to understand why funds choose to leave.