Six major accusations from an Ethereum developer: ETH was not defeated by an opponent, but by itself

An Ethereum developer published a lengthy article elaborating on what they believe Ethereum has done wrong in recent years, bluntly pointing out: Ethereum's defeat is not from opponents, but from itself
(Background: Ethereum drops below $2,000 for the first time this year! Futures open interest shows bears are increasing their positions)
(Additional context: Analysts warn: Ethereum's target price is only $1,800, hitting a 13-month low)

Table of Contents

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• No control, retreat in glory first
• Environmental propaganda is a signal
• Seven years of delays
• Lack of native staking user experience
• A managed decline
• Ideology over product delivery
• A true diagnosis

Ethereum's loss isn't the market, but itself. When you don't want to blame those who have brought Ethereum to its current state, you'll say "ETH has received its deserved market cap ceiling." But this ceiling is not just a vague coordination theory; behind it are specific people, specific dates.

Before accusing, let me make a declaration. As an early investor, I am still developing on Ethereum. I respect its vision and liquidity.

At the same time, I am also a frustrated holder who is trapped, and this is the key point: this is insider honesty, not an outside Solana cheerleader throwing stones.

No control, retreat in glory first

Between 2021 and 2023, Ethereum Foundation's narrative shifted. "We are building" became "We are infrastructure."

Vitalik's focus shifted from Casper standards to articles about diversification, multi-identity, and network states.

David Hoffman's portrayal of "trustless, generous, noble image" is precisely the rhetoric used by mature institutions to defend their turf.

This is the posture of someone who hasn't yet secured their position but is already acting like an incumbent. In the market, your stance influences the outcome. Acting like a winner before winning is exactly why challengers can take your place.

Ethereum hasn't secured the chairmanship, yet it already treats itself as a retired leader, and the price chart reflects this: since the merge, ETH has fallen about 65% against BTC.

Environmental propaganda is a signal

The core marketing message of the merge is reducing energy consumption by 99.95%. Check out Ethereum's official website. This choice reveals Ethereum Foundation's communication target: they are speaking to their conscience, not the market. Institutions want profits. Developers want certainty. Users want cheaper transactions.

Promoting ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) without marketing user experience indicates Ethereum is answering questions that capital providers never raised.

For years, ESG critics and climate activists have attacked PoW for carbon emissions. This attack is ineffective against Bitcoin because it’s baseless, and more importantly, the capital allocators simply don't care.

Ethereum has spent its most significant narrative window defending against a harmless attack instead of promoting speed and yield. Meanwhile, Solana is marketing speed.

Seven years of delays

Proof of Stake (PoS) has been on Ethereum's roadmap since 2015. Vitalik was discussing the slasher algorithm as early as 2014. The merge only happened on September 15, 2022. Seven years from announcement, two full crypto cycles have passed.

Solana launched its mainnet testnet in March 2020. While Ethereum spent its largest narrative window delivering PoS, Solana delivered wallets, multiple decentralized exchanges, aggregators, money markets, and alternative DeFi stacks.

The cost is not just the passage of calendar time but also Ethereum entering the bull market in 2021. By the time PoS was implemented, the debate over modular versus monolithic architecture was in full swing, and Ethereum was no longer dominant.

Lack of native staking user experience

PoS is central to the argument that "ETH is a currency." Issuance discipline. Native yields. Sound money.

Three years after the merge, Ethereum Foundation still hasn't launched a first-party staking app suitable for ordinary users. The official method: operate via command-line tools on a completely offline computer, deposit at least 32 ETH, and run and maintain a validator node yourself.

Users can only go through Lido, which still holds about 25% market share. Vitalik himself pointed out this centralization risk.

Every asset aiming to be a currency has default custodial and yield pathways. Bitcoin has Bitcoin Core. The dollar has banks. But ETH, the most important monetary feature, lacks a standardized interface.

When an organization doesn't want to compete, it says, "We don't pick winners." This is a constructive failure hidden beneath all other failures.

A managed decline

The roadmap centered around rollups clearly weakens the base layer. EIP-4844 launches on March 13, 2024. Blob base fees will be at or near 1 wei for most of 2024 and 2025. Ethereum's quarterly fee revenue has dropped about 95% from its peak of $4.3 billion in Q4 2021.

Arbitrum's marketing blog states: "Arbitrum L2 accounts for 90% to 98% of profit margins." By mid-2025, Base will account for about 70% of all rollup profits. Each major L2 has issued its own token, leading to severe capital fragmentation within the Ethereum ecosystem.

This cannot be justified by architecture. From a revenue perspective, it’s a strategic surrender. The moment the underlying assets are drained is precisely when Solana proved that integrated L1s can capture fees and accumulate value for their native tokens. Modularization sounds elegant in slides.

Ideology over product delivery

This is an uncomfortable topic. The Ethereum Foundation's vocabulary is philosophically loaded: trustless, public goods, quadratic financing, diversification, regen, multi-identity. Ethereum culture favors philosophical correctness over product victory.

Vitalik writes articles trying to distance this chain from financialization, but the only market willing to buy into that was precisely the financial sector.

Whether called "awakening" or "academic capture," it’s all the same. Every successful consumer tech company optimizes for what users truly want, not philosophical purity.

iPhone is closed. AWS is centralized. Uber broke legal restrictions. Stripe ignores established standards. They deliver things users even didn't realize they wanted, building moats.

Solana organizes around a question: what do users want, and how do we deliver it together? Ecosystems coordinate, products integrate, value flows back into the base assets.

Ethereum, on the other hand, is organized around philosophical purity.

One side is doing work; the other is talking philosophy.

When you stop competing, you call yourself a "noble giver."

True diagnosis

Decorating the current decline as a "decent cover-up" is self-deception. The real essence is accumulated execution debt.

The obstacle to development isn't coordination issues but delivery problems. In 2021, Ethereum had absolute structural advantages but spent its best three years on governance debates; meanwhile, Solana, as an ecosystem, collaborated efficiently and completed the next L1 cycle's valuation without Ethereum's involvement.

"ETH has received its deserved market cap ceiling" is correct. But this ceiling is lower than what bulls expected, and lower than my own expectations. The reason behind it is specific execution mistakes, not some coordination theory.

Because the logic "has already been realized," selling off is a decent way out. The honest truth is: the sell-off is because Ethereum has given up fighting for asset appreciation.