Published: June 4th, 2025
Ethereum's layer-1 capabilities could grow by a factor of ten between now and next year, the blockchain's co-founder claims.
Addressing attendees at ETHGlobal 2025 in Prague last week, Vitalik Buterin said the world's number two crypto network should see cost and speed improvements ‘soon’.
‘Across the board I see room for the network to expand its speed and efficiency at scale,’ he said. ‘In general we are on track to optimize the layer one network by about 10-times over the next 12 to 14 months.’
The network, which underpins most of the DeFi ecosystem and the second largest digital coin by market cap, has faced criticisms about speed, efficiency, and transaction fees, especially when compared to competitors like Solana.
Since its recent Pectra network upgrade, Ether (ETH) has rallied, trading north of USD 2,600 at time of writing. Figures from CoinGecko put it up 40 per cent over the past 30 days and about 48 per cent below its 2021 all-time high of USD 4,875.
Developers rely on the Ethereum blockchain to build decentralized apps (dApps), which can range from new crypto exchanges to blockchain video games with built in NFT marketplaces. Because the network's central layer (Layer 1 or L1) is used so heavily, it often becomes congested. That drives up the gas fees meant to balance out demand and slows down transaction processing.
Before the Pectra upgrade, the network's answer was to create an outgrowth that effectively handles the overflow from L1. Called Layer-2 networks (L2s), they are pieces of software that work alongside the L1.
Some aim to accelerate the broad network and reduce costs. But the downside has been to draw capital away from Ethereum and block ETH from hitting its true price potential.
In mid-May, Ethereum-based instruments attracted more than USD 200 million in investment inflows, a surge above the USD 1.5 million worth of inflows seen a week before.
Looking at all crypto investment products, figures fromCoinShares showed that investors poured USD 780 million into digital asset instruments in the first two weeks of May.
The total included crypto spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), raising year-to-date inflows above USD 7.3 billion, a new high for the year.
In October 2024, Google abruptly stopped displaying price charts for Ethereum, Bitcoin, and others in its top of the page search results over a four-day period. The apparent glitch negatively impacted the prices of both BTC and ETH.
Though users could still access up-to-date charts on Google Finance, the search engine's long held practice of auto-displaying the current price chart of major coins at the top of the page for any related search was either suspended or deliberately taken offline as the week's trading session got underway.
X (Twitter) users started posting over the weekend that searching for the price of BTC no longer included a chart at the top of the first search engine results page (SERP). Normal stock price searches were still generating charts.
The sudden loss of instant crypto price charts prompted speculation that Google was attempting to cool the current bull market. Interestingly, searches for ‘DOGE’ were still showing Dogecoin's price chart on Monday.
Google has generated charts showing current rates of leading cryptocurrencies for more than a year, allowing users to check prices quickly without logging on to a dedicated trading platform or data site. The feature displayed near-real-time price charts for Bitcoin, Ethereum and others in search results.
Separately, data from Google Trends showed that search volumes for the term ‘Bitcoin’ had dropped to a one-year low on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. Global interest in the term had fallen to 26 per cent of its YTD peak search volume, which happened the week commencing March 7th.
Search interest for BTC is highest in El Salvador, which was the first country to make BTC a form of legal tender. Nigeria is number two, a country with surging inflation and where many see crypto as a venue for capital flight, prompting a crackdown by authorities.
In February 2024, Bitcoin's Q1 ascent looked to have stalled, potentially signaling the start of an unsettled period for the world's biggest crypto by market cap.
Figures from CoinGecko recorded a less than one per cent increase on Monday 5th February, when it peaked at USD 43,233. At the previous Friday's close, however, BTC was the singular focus for investors with big crypto holdings. A report from CoinShares showed inflows to crypto investment products totaled USD 708 million on Friday, 2nd February. That raised year-to-date inflows to USD 1.5 billion and total crypto assets under management globally to USD 53 billion.
Almost all of the inflows (99 per cent) went into BTC-related instruments. Good news for Bitcoin bulls, but there are signs that stormy weather may be on the horizon.
Also on 2nd February, defunct crypto firm Genesis made a legal request to liquidate USD 1.4 billion in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares. GBTC recently converted from a restricted fund that only accredited investors could access, to a spot Bitcoin ETF. The change means any shares that were once locked down can now be traded.
If Genesis had won the go-ahead from the courts to offload its GBTC holdings, there were fears that it could create more selling pressure if other investors perceived a rising wave of GBTC redemptions.
An estimated USD 5.7 billion in GBTC holdings were sold off in January 2024, likely explaining how quickly the buzz arising from the SEC's long-awaited Bitcoin ETF approval dissipated after trading kicked off.
The YTD winner was altcoin Chainlink (LINK), changing hands at USD 19.52 on Monday 5th Feb., an 8 per cent rise over 24-hours. Over the previous seven days, LINK had risen by close to 36 per cent.
