Ethereum: ‘First mover,’ yes, but what does this mean for its projections

Ethereum is the undisputed king of the market’s altcoins at the moment. However, where will it go next a month from now? Or, even a year from now? Well, a recent survey by Finder has predicted Ether’s long-term price movement. What’s more, it also forecasted a 10-year price target of over $50,000.

The product comparison website published a report earlier this week surveying 50 experts from the fintech industry about their long-term targets for ETH. The main forecast for the year-end came out to be $5,114, along with a $15,364 price prediction for 2025 and a whopping $50,788 for 2030.

Most of those bullish on Ethereum’s growth noted its monopoly of the DeFi and smart contracts industry. Besides, they cited future expectations of further growth as the reasons behind their optimism.

Dr. Iwa Salami, Associate Professor at the University of East London, gave an end-of-year prediction in line with the panel’s forecast, saying,

“Ethereum has the advantage of being the first mover, which is the reason why almost 80% of applications are built on Ethereum’s network, according to State of the DApps.”

According to him, “cheaper and faster blockchains (like Solana and Avalanche) are still not threatening,” with the exec adding that “Ethereum is likely to maintain its dominant position for some time to come.”

However, not all respondents seemed convinced as almost 40% of them gave a price target at or below its current price. Most of them chalked out the dip in value to the cost and scalability issues associated with ETH. Gavin Smith, General Partner at Panxora Crypto, noted,

“The costs have reached a point where most smart contract operations are now too expensive without integrating a level-two solution. Other smart contract blockchains are showing better technology solutions that supports a greater number of transactions at a lower cost.”

Another issue pointed out by the bears was the lack of cybersecurity since platforms built on top of Ethereum are at a greater risk of falling prey to a hack or exploit. A recent report found out that the Ethereum ecosystem lost over $800 million in just the third quarter of 2021. In fact, the most recent DeFi hack on the Cream network contributed to losses upwards of $130 million.

Nevertheless, only 9% of the respondents said ETH should be sold. That is mostly because of optimism for future price appreciation since 93% of the panel said the ETH 2.0 upgrade should help the network resolve at least one of its ongoing issues.

The Ethereum network’s popularity has turned out to be a bane for the ecosystem, however, as it continues to suffer from ever-increasing congestion and gas fee due to high traffic. The slow transition to ETH 2.0 and the recent implementation of EIP-1559 are working to fix that.

Ether recently seemed poised to hit the $5,000 price target too as it broke through new all-time highs last week before reversing. The token was changing hands at $4,173, at the time of writing, with a 42% price hike over the past month.

In a note to its customers last month, JP Morgan had observed that investors have been ditching Bitcoin Futures for contracts with Ethereum. This projected a bullish outlook for the network within institutional communities.