Will Ethereum’s Rally Continue? Insights from a Bitcoin Veteran Who’s Bullish on ETH

Ethereum’s Recent Surge: What You Need to Know

• Jeff Garzik, an early Bitcoin developer, has expressed a “super long-term view” of Ethereum and remains optimistic about its future.
• He believes Ethereum will continue to play a major role in the Web3 landscape, mainly due to the widespread utility of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
• The price of ETH skyrocketed past $3,800 this week, marking a 60% increase over the past month.

Ethereum has made impressive gains recently, climbing to over $3,800 this week—a remarkable rise of around 60% in just one month, according to data from CoinGecko. This resurgence has sparked talk about the arrival of “ETH season.”

With Ethereum’s considerable rebound, questions persist for its holders: Is this revival sustainable?

Jeff Garzik’s Take on Ethereum’s Future

Jeff Garzik, a pioneering programmer who contributed to Bitcoin alongside its creator Satoshi Nakamoto, has voiced a strong conviction that Ethereum is set for success, primarily owing to its functional and universal technology.

“I’m not bearish on Ethereum because everybody is building on EVM,” Garzik stated in a recent interview with Decrypt, referring to the Ethereum Virtual Machine, which is the foundational engine behind smart contracts on the Ethereum network.

His endorsement comes at a critical time for Ethereum, recovering from a period of uncertainty when ETH plummeted to $1,410 on April 7—the lowest price recorded since March 2023.

Earlier this year, the Ethereum Foundation underwent significant leadership shifts, raising alarms that it was losing ground to competitive blockchains like Solana. This, in turn, led to investor concerns over Ethereum’s development roadmap.

Ethereum’s Recent Performance: Market Trends

Ethereum’s recent performance has been heartening for investors. It reached $3,844 on July 21 and surged even further over the weekend, hovering just below its all-time high of $4,878 set in November 2021. This dramatic rising trend has been fueled by increased institutional and corporate investments in ETH.

Notably, spot Ethereum ETFs recently saw inflows totaling $2.12 billion, nearly doubling previous records, according to data from Farside Investors. In fact, Ethereum ETFs recently overtook Bitcoin in terms of investor inflow.

Additionally, several Ethereum treasury companies, such as Bitmine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink, have amassed billions in ETH during this bullish phase.

Technological Strengths and Long-Term Viability

Garzik emphasizes that Ethereum’s technological innovations, rather than just increased investor interest, point to its long-term potential. He has utilized EVM technology for his own project, Hemi Network, which is a layer-2 network compatible with both Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Hemi Network launched its mainnet in March and aims to unify both Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems.

“I look at it maybe from a different perspective than price,” Garzik remarked. “What’s going to be here 10 years from now, 20 years from now? I think it’s unquestionably Bitcoin and Ethereum.”

Although Garzik refrained from making specific price predictions for ETH, he pointed out that much of the crypto ecosystem is fundamentally supported by Ethereum’s technology.

“The default choice for programmability… and for smart contracts is to be building on Ethereum tech,” he concluded. “Everybody wants to, whether it’s an L1 or an L2.”

EVM is widely adopted across many popular blockchains, including Avalanche, Polygon, and Arbitrum.

Competition and the Future Landscape

When asked about contenders to Ethereum, like Solana, Sui, and Aptos, which employ different nodes and programming languages instead of the EVM, Garzik responded with skepticism. He said, “You’ve got a lot of people saying, ‘I’ve got this latest whizbang technology. It’s gonna smoke Ethereum, [and] Ethereum is like yesterday’s news.’ [But] none of them have time in the market.”

Reflecting on the competition between newer blockchains and Ethereum, he likened it to a joke about Microsoft during the late 1990s regarding the unpredictable nature of new technologies: “If Microsoft made a car, it’d go 1000 miles an hour, it’d randomly crash, turn left, and explode when you least expect it.”