Ethereum experts say AI agents, major network upgrades, increased institutional interest, and major regulatory reforms from U.S. President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency-friendly administration are all highly anticipated in 2025.
Infinex founder Kain Warwick told Cointelegraph that Ethereum may have suffered a fairly mild underperformance in 2024, but the asset is like a “coiled spring” and poised for a breakout in 2025.
Ethereum (ETH) is up 53.5% year to date, from a price of $2,350 on January 1 to $3,478 at the time of publication, according to TradingView data.
ETH recorded a year-to-date gain of 53.5%. source: TradingView
Meanwhile, other major cryptocurrencies such as Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), and Ripple’s XRP (XRP) recorded gains of 92.7%, 57%, and 276.5%, respectively, since the beginning of the year.
“The longer you reel it in, the more the spring will stick out. There are plenty of tailwinds and a few things holding it back. But once the wind blows, people will say, ‘Oh shit,’” Warwick said.
source: Kane Warwick
He cited a number of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and the improved user experience resulting from these upgrades as key turning points for the price action of Ethereum and ETH moving forward.
“I think by 2025, account abstraction will be better, L2 interoperability will be much better, and cross-L2 UX will be much improved.”
Ethereum Gets Pectra Upgrade in 2025
One of the major upgrades that Warwick and other Ethereum fans would like to see is the Pectra upgrade, the next major milestone in the Ethereum roadmap that is currently scheduled to be introduced in early 2025.
Gaia Regis, co-founder and CEO of Restake platform Byzantine, said the Pectra upgrade will fundamentally change how the Ethereum security layer functions.
“Currently, Ethereum staking is largely driven by liquidity. Essentially, many ETH holders want to stake. “More nodes are generally better because it increases decentralization and security,” she said.
However, Regis said that due to the sheer scale that Ethereum has now reached (communication occurring between more than 1 million Ethereum validators), the network is starting to slow down.
“Pectra solves this problem by increasing the maximum valid balance of a validator from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. This drastically reduces the number of validators required, putting much less strain on the network,” Regis said.
“Less burden means a faster network and happier Ethereum users.”
In September, Ethereum core developers decided to split the Pectra upgrade into two major packages. The first Pectra package introduces a total of eight EIPs, most notably EIP-7702, aimed at improving the user experience for wallet and chain abstractions.
“This will make staking cheaper, more people will stake, and staking rewards will decrease over time. For this reason, we are very optimistic about the renewal. Many people will want to increase their staking rewards by securing other networks.”
Trump’s Crypto-Friendly SEC Would Especially Help ETH
Saul Rejwan, managing partner at cryptocurrency venture capital firm Masterkey, told Cointelegraph that Ethereum and more “legitimate” projects within the cryptocurrency industry, particularly decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN), are among the most popular projects under the Trump administration. He said he could make big profits. A more cryptocurrency-friendly Securities and Exchange Commission.
On December 4, Trump nominated cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins as the next SEC Chairman, while current Chairman Gary Gensler is scheduled to resign on January 20.
“DeFi projects on Ethereum will thrive in a more favorable regulatory environment, while sectors such as re-staking will need some regulatory push to attract institutional investors,” he said.
“We expect this new leadership to lower barriers to entry and make it easier for early-stage cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and resilient businesses to innovate and thrive.”
Stablecoins, tokenization and AI agents
Matt Houghan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, said Ethereum has three key goals heading into 2025 and expects the asset to see a boom in the new year.
“Ethereum is at the center of the three biggest trends shaping cryptocurrencies in 2025: stablecoins, tokenization, and the rise of AI agents. We have dominant market share in all three areas,” Houghan said.
The total market capitalization of Ethereum stablecoins amounts to $110 billion. source: Dipilama
“I think excitement in these three areas next year will influence ETH to make a comeback in 2025. You are already seeing this in recent strong performance and ETF flows,” he added.
Over the past two weeks, the Ether ETF has generated $1.5 billion in net inflows, one of the largest inflow periods on record among eight spot funds, according to Farside Investors data.
The Ethereum ETF has seen net inflows of more than $1.5 billion over the past two weeks. Source: Farside Investors
Like Rejwan, Houghan also advised that Trump’s new cryptocurrency-friendly SEC is particularly beneficial for Ethereum.
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“We are thrilled that the regulatory sword of Damocles that has hovered over the U.S. cryptocurrency industry for the past four years has been lifted. Washington’s new approach will attract a million entrepreneurs to the cryptocurrency space, many of them building killer apps on Ethereum and Layer 2,” Houghan said.
“We are entering a golden age of cryptocurrencies, and Ethereum will be one of the main beneficiaries of this blossoming.”
Houghan said that overall, Bitwise expects ETH to break the previous high of $4,878 and reach a new high of $7,000 in the new year.
More Layer 2, re-staking and better DApps
Edu Timmers, Ethereum advocate and chief marketing officer at cryptocurrency company Keyrock, expected the launch of new layer 2 networks, including projects from Abstract and Deutsche Bank, to improve the wider usability of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Timmers also cited the recent rise of Hyperliquid, an on-chain transgression protocol built on Arbitrum, as evidence of Ethereum’s growing on-chain dominance, pointing out that Ethereum and its decentralized application (DApp) ecosystem are competing with centralized market leaders like Binance. He said he expects it to start competing properly with . new year.
“Starting in 2025, things like Hyperliquid will start competing with centralized players like Binance instead of decentralized players like Uniswap,” Timmers said.
Additionally, Timmers said Ethereum re-staking is another underrated area to look forward to in 2025, saying it will make the network more powerful and versatile.
“As chains begin to offload security to the Ethereum mainnet through solutions like EigenLayer, Restake could provide a breakthrough.”
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