jakiro
Source: Daoshuo Blockchain
In the comments at the end of the article these days, many readers talked about their disappointment with Ethereum’s performance this round.
In fact, not only these readers, but also I have expressed my disappointment in articles many times.
But no matter how disappointed we are, we should rationally analyze the reasons behind this:
Is it a problem with Ethereum itself?Or is it a problem with the entire ecosystem?
If it is the problem of Ethereum itself, have these problems been solved in other blockchain projects?
Let me first talk about my conclusion:
I still hold Ethereum’s position, and it has not changed at all, and I have not exchanged Ethereum for other smart contract blockchain tokens; and I am still optimistic about Ethereum in the long run.
I remember in previous articles, I talked about more than once about my three criteria for evaluating a first-tier blockchain project:
How decentralized is it in operation?
What about its community?
How is its team?
Today, my evaluation criteria remain unchanged.
According to these three criteria, the answer I came up with couldn’t be easier.
In all one-layer blockchains that support Turing complete smart contracts:
Ethereum has the best decentralization in its operations, and Vitalik is still doing its best to promote its further decentralization.
Its community remains the most powerful and cohesive.
Its team is still determined to inherit Satoshi Nakamoto’s ideas and is still orderly advancing the project, although this is getting more and more difficult and its pace is getting more and more staggering.
Ethereum is not perfect at all, and there are many problems (such as being criticized for being opaque and increasingly bureaucratic…).If you study it carefully, you may find 100 or even 1,000 disadvantages.But I still have to say that looking around the entire crypto ecosystem, I really can’t find a second smart contract public chain that surpasses Ethereum in these three aspects.
In my opinion, some of the “problems” of Ethereum criticized by many articles are not Ethereum’s problems at all. For example, some criticize the Ethereum team for not paying attention to application construction.
The construction of applications should not be the focus of Ethereum.The focus of the Ethereum team should be to build the most decentralized, neutral and censor-resistant infrastructure, build a “good nest”, so that any phoenix (application) can live and work in peace and contentment when flying into this nest.
As for what Phoenix (application) this “nest” can attract, let it be left to hackers and geeks with endless creativity all over the world.
For example, some articles criticized Ethereum’s value capture being taken away by the second layer of expansion.
This makes it even less necessary to worry.
The second layer of expansion is still the Ethereum ecosystem, and its security will ultimately be guaranteed by Ethereum, which determines that the value of the entire ecosystem will eventually return to Ethereum.But the value will first go to the second layer to expand, and then spill over to Ethereum.This will only make the entire Ethereum ecosystem stronger and have a higher threshold.
Many readers talked about the fact that Ethereum’s currency price performance is not as good as other blockchains, and felt that those blockchains may have a long-term potential that exceeds Ethereum.
I never use short-term price performance to measure the long-term potential of a project.
If we look back at the growth process of Ethereum, we can experience the hardships and hardships of it to be called the “king of the public chain of smart contracts” today.
How many accidents, conflicts, and attacks have been experienced?
It has always been closely watched by the spotlight, and any of its problems cannot escape scrutiny.
Without this kind of purgatory tempering like a mountain of swords and a sea of fire, it would not have been able to achieve its status today.
This purgatory-like tempering is not only a challenge to the project itself, but also a challenge to the project team, project community, and especially spiritual leaders.
When we think about whether a project is likely to beat Ethereum’s position, we might as well think about it:
When that project sat on the throne, can it withstand the tests that Ethereum has endured?Its team, community and spiritual leaders can’t stand the torment that Ethereum once encountered?
The “throne” is not that easy to sit on.
If you have to ask why Ethereum’s price is not as good as some other blockchain tokens in this cycle?
I thought about it carefully. If we only look at the application, it seems that besides MEME currency is very active in some other blockchains, I can’t think of other new applications.
But is MEME currency considered an innovation in application?Even if it counts, can it last for a long time?
If the price increase of a project token does not come from a long-term application innovation, then I will regard this price increase as short-term market fluctuations and not as the fundamental factor that changes the long-term potential of the project.
So I’ll ignore this short-term price comparison.
In fact, what amazed me the most in this cycle is the innovation of Bitcoin, especially the innovation of a batch of protocols led by Inscriptions.But it is a pity that after protocol innovation, the Bitcoin ecosystem has almost stopped in application innovation.
Looking at the entire crypto ecosystem, there is no excuse for application innovation in this cycle.
Go back to the few questions I asked at the beginning of the article:
Is it a problem with Ethereum itself?Or is it a problem with the entire ecosystem?
My answer is: The fundamental reason for the sluggish price of Ethereum in this cycle is the poverty of application innovation, but this problem is not only a problem with the Ethereum ecosystem, but also a problem facing the entire crypto ecosystem.
If it is the problem of Ethereum itself, have these problems been solved in other blockchain projects?
My answer is: This problem has not been solved in other blockchain ecosystems.
In fact, when it comes to price performance comparison, I think more about why the price of Ethereum relative to Bitcoin is constantly falling in this bear market———————————————————————————————-After about 15 Ethereums, 1 Bitcoin can be exchanged for more than 20 Ethereums.
I think the reason here is probably because of the lack of application innovation.
After the US government relaxed its ties to institutional investors in this cycle, institutional investors began to look at this ecosystem with a covetous eye.
But when they find that the entire ecosystem has poor applications and scarce users, and they can hardly find the “application value” they can understand, how many can they invest?
You can’t let institutions like BlackRock buy MEME coins, right?They may not be interested in DeFi tokens that have no value empowerment.
In this case, the only ones they can buy, have controllable risks, good liquidity and high consensus are almost the only ones left.
According to this logic, the price of Bitcoin is much easier to understand than the price of other tokens.
But I think this is certainly not the norm, because the crypto ecosystem cannot always rely on Bitcoin.In the future, if the crypto ecosystem can substantially change our lives, it must have real application innovation and new business models.And I still think these innovations are most likely to happen in the Ethereum ecosystem.
