In the world of digital assets, people often talk about Bitcoin the most, but also keep an eye on Ethereum which is regarded as the world’s second largest cryptocurrency. There is no doubt that Ethereum is overshadowed by the world’s largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, but surely it has plenty to offer.

Crypto enthusiasts often look at Ethereum as much more than just a digital token and believe it has a huge intrinsic value and offers unique earning opportunities for investors.

Let’s dig deep through this guide to see what future holds for Ethereum and will it continue to gain momentum in the years to come.

What Is Ethereum?

The largest altcoin and the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, is more than just a crypto token which is popular even outside the crypto community for its power-packed features and interesting blockchain solutions. 

Ethereum is an open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality and often used in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi). More than just a digital token, Ethereum is more like a network, maintained and updated by validators who earn Ether (ETH) in exchange for their work and contribution.

Many experts believe Ethereum to reach a $40,000 valuation by 2030, and it does not seem as unrealistic as it might appear. There are several strong factors, including its unique model, broad market strategy, scalability solutions, and leader in various decentralized applications, which has put Ethereum on the top of the list.

Ethereum Overview

Key Use Cases of Ethereum

Ethereum has played a major role in expanding blockchain technology to the moon, offering blockchain projects, enhanced efficiency, faster transactions, and decentralized applications to industries across the world. Let’s have a look at the key use cases of Ethereum which are widespread and expanding at a very fast pace: 

1. Decentralized Finance (De-Fi)
2. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)
3. Smart Contracts
4. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
5. Decentralized apps or Dapps.

In short, there are numerous sectors in which Ethereum is offering utility and creating value. Industries from entertainment to real estate and even healthcare are creating applications and tools based on the blockchain solutions provided by Ethereum.

To understand where Ethereum will go next and to gain a better understanding of Ethereum’s forecast, one needs to comprehend its unique model first, which is very unlike other cryptocurrencies.

Understanding the Functioning of Ethereum

The Ethereum network began its operation by using a consensus mechanism which involved proof-of-work (PoW), but in 2022 it switched to proof-of-stake (PoS). The PoS consensus mechanism is considered to be more secure which tends to utilize less energy, and much more efficient for implementing scaling solutions as compared to its previous model. 

In the PoS model, the validators are allowed to stake capital in the form of ETH and join the network where this stake ETH acts as a collateral. Once activated, validators receive new blocks from their peers on the Ethereum network, then they are responsible for sending it out to other nodes on the network.

Moreover, validator nodes vote on the validity of a new block of transactions, thus collectively ensuring new blocks are authentic and in force before permanently adding them to the main blockchain. Then, out of these nodes, one node is selected as the “block proposer” for the current time slot, which is responsible for building the new block of transactions.

A PoS is much better than PoW, as it does not utilize heavy computational power to solve a puzzle.  But, in the PoS system, the node itself validates the new transactions and stakes their own value as collateral. These nodes then run competently to avoid losing that collateral.

With the latest “merge” now complete after years of hard work, Ethereum’s transition to Proof-of-Stake is finally active. Now with this major change, the Ethereum network started to use “validators” and not “miners” to approve, create and add blocks to the Ethereum blockchain. But the process as a whole is still in the developing phase, as Ethereum 2.0 is still yet to arrive.

Industries and experts across the globe are eyeing Ethereum 2.0, which can prove to be a game changer as it will help the Ethereum network to drastically reduce energy consumption as compared to Bitcoin, which is still using the PoW consensus mechanism. The ETH 2.0 will also require less computational hardware and thus will be accessible to a greater number of other applications with less scalability issues. 

Where Could Ethereum Reach Next?

Ethereum holds a promising future as it is not merely a transactional currency but eventually it is establishing itself as a “store of value” for those entities which are looking to optimize their wealth. Ethereum functionality very well goes with NFTs, DApps, DeFi, smart contracts and the list keeps growing every year.

As long as the Ethereum network keeps becoming stronger and the team continues to develop innovative features, ETH and its investors will likely continue to grow and prosper now and years to come. Let’s check out the long-term price predictions of Ethereum.  

Ethereum Prediction for 2023, 2025 and 2030

As per the recent technical charts, in 2023, the Ethereum might stay in the comfortable range between $1,800-$1,900. The currency might face its resistance at $1,760 and see the lowest level of $1,600. The average trading price is expected to be around $1,880.75 with the potential return on investment (RoI) of 5%.

According to Cryptonewz, by the time it is 2025, Ethereum is expected to reach up to the maximum level of $6,500 and with a minimum price of $ 4,500. And for the year 2030, it is expected that the token may go up to a maximum of $20,500, with a minimum price of $14,000. 

Even several veteran analysts and market experts are quite bullish on Ethereum and maintain a positive outlook on Ethereum’s price. Some expect Ethereum to touch even $40,000 by the year 2030. 

Global investment fund house, VanEck, seems quite bullish on Ethereum and believes that Ethereum’s potential is as a “triple-point asset which includes capital asset, a consumer asset and a store of value. VanEck asserts that the market cap for Ethereum could exceed $2 trillion under the right circumstances.

According to Ben Ritchie, managing director of Digital Capital Management, ETH might expect to close the year at the level of $2,500 if everything happens positive around. 

Even popular crypto blogs such as Gov Capital and Traders Union have total faith in Ethereum and maintain a bullish view on the same.  

Gov Capital expects it to touch $7,200 by the year 2025 and Anton Kharitonov, analyst at Traders Union, believes that it might trade in the range of $6196.08 by the end of 2025, and the coin could be worth $31656.34 by 2030. 

And, Bill Barhydt, CEO of trading platform Abra, once said in an interview with CNBC, Ethereum could touch a price of $40,000. This is thanks to the various use cases of the Ethereum blockchain and the Ether cryptocurrency, he said.

Experts believe that the launch of Ethereum 2.0 will be a key factor which might support the ETH in the years to come. ETH 2.0 will largely help in eliminating the key problems which the Ethereum blockchain was facing due to its low transaction processing speed and high transactional gas fees. 

That’s why due to the multiple use cases of Ethereum blockchain and its cryptocurrencies, experts remain bullish on the price of the digital asset.

Will Ethereum ever Outperform Bitcoin?

As they say that anything is possible in the world of cryptocurrencies. So, can Ethereum surpass Bitcoin? Well, if you take an example of the year 2021, then ETH outperformed Bitcoin and gained nearly 400% compared to 66% for Bitcoin.

However, experts believe that due to its unique blockchain and several use cases, Ethereum has a stable future and might even perform better than Bitcoin in future but is unlikely to overtake the price of Bitcoin. That said, ETH has all the potential to be at par with Bitcoin in terms of market cap as it has an uncapped supply unlike Bitcoin.

Bottom Line

Several analysts and market experts have studied the performance of Ethereum since its inception and knowing its capabilities they firmly believe that Ethereum is here to stay because of its solid fundamentals and potentiality.

The continued growth of Ethereum and its constant upgrades has led many to predict that 2023 and upcoming years will be good for the Ethereum as rising confidence in the technology and blockchain solutions will surely let Ethereum to the moon and investors HODLing ETH for long will not be wrecked.