Ethereum is trying to clean up the image, as if it’s losing its grip. The Ethereum Foundation launched a campaign called the “1 Trillion Dollar Security Initiative” in 2025, promoting blockchain as the only serious option to secure real-world value.
But this effort comes as projects are sliding across the board, from price performance to user attention to developer support, while Solana is rapidly increasing.
The message from Ethereum’s leadership is about stability, uptime and security. However, Ether has not kept up to Bitcoin since the merge upgrade rolled out in 2022. The gap just widened.
Ether-to-Bitcoin price ratio has since remained on a downward slope, and Ethereum has struggled to attract new interest even with the addition of new technology upgrades. Instead of regaining momentum, we saw core users and builders Ethereum leadership leaves.
Solana gains traction and Ethereum loses the ground
In 2024, Solana’s active developers rose 83%, while Ethereum fell 17%. Lower prices and better user experience at Solana have drawn in a young crowd focused on speed, memecoin and new ideas than Ethereum’s long-term vision.
That same audience drove Solana’s prices to an all-time high earlier this year, but the ether was almost flat. Ethereum’s ecosystem is too fragmented, and developers have opted out of dealing with layer 2 rollups like Base and Arbitrum to run basic Dapps.
Even the Ethereum Foundation’s own move to promote security has been raised question. Katie Talati, ARCA’s Head of Research, said the new initiative was a branding effort, not a breakthrough. “This feels more like a marketing repositioning from the Ethereum Foundation than an actual technological innovation,” Katie said.
“I don’t think this announcement alone is enough to recapture developers and user mindshare. But in the long run, focusing on security assurances with improvements to UX/UI can attract more developers. However, users only come when there is something interesting to use.”
Part of Ethereum’s current struggle comes from its scaling advances. After the Dencun upgrade last year, Ethereum has made progress in moving activities out of the main chain. However, most of that activity landed in Layer 2.
The core network did not maintain its momentum, resulting in a lower ether burn rate. This weakens the previous deflation pitch of the coin. This is one of the main reasons investors kept it in the first place.
Wall Street Push Cannot Induce Interest in Etheric ETFs
Ethereum leaders are currently attracting attention in Washington and Wall Street. The group called Etherealize, which provides support from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and led by researcher Vivek Raman, focuses on lobbying for the future of blockchain in traditional finance.
Vivek explained the strategy in an email, “We will talk to Wall Street players all day long. Blockchain security is the most important quality to ensure trust.” He added that Ethereum’s role will be a “digital oil” that complements Bitcoin’s role as “digital gold.”
The story hasn’t worked so far. In 2025, the US Spot Ether ETF saw $42 million in net spills. At the same time, the Bitcoin ETF brought $8 billion to 12 funds. The agency appears to be more interested in returns and yields than Ethereum’s security pitch. Ethereum’s roadmap was not as convincing as it drew serious capital from Bitcoin’s orbit.
At the same time, Michael Saylor’s company MicroStrategy is once again all in on Bitcoin. His company has announced that it will sell 10% of “permanent conflict” preferred stock worth $2.1 billion in order to buy more Bitcoin. Such headings do not help in the Ethereum case.
The contrast is sharp when one chain draws billions through aggressive purchasing strategies and the other chain launches a brand to chase the money of the institution that doesn’t even arrive.
