Crypto and tech stocks saw large selloffs on March 10 as fears of a US recession heightened despite efforts from the White House to temper concerns. 

Economists at Wall Street investment bank JPMorgan have raised their recession risk this year to 40%, up from 30% at the beginning of 2025. “We see a material risk that the US falls into recession this year owing to extreme US policies,” wrote the analysts, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Analysts at Goldman Sachs economists also raised their 12-month recession probability to 20%, up from 15%. They said that the forecast could rise further if the Trump administration remains “committed to its policies even in the face of much worse data.” 

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley economists lowered their economic growth forecasts last week and raised inflation expectations. The bank predicted a GDP growth of just 1.5% in 2025, falling to 1.2% in 2026. 

It comes despite a key economic adviser to US President Donald Trump pushed back against talks of a recession. Speaking to CNBC on March 10, Kevin Hassett, who heads the National Economic Council, said there were many reasons to be optimistic about the US economy. 

“There are a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy going forward. But for sure, this quarter, there are some blips in the data,” he said. 

Meanwhile, in an interview with Fox News on March 9, Donald Trump responded to a question about the possibility of a recession by saying the US economy was going through “a period of transition.”

Blockchain betting platform Polymarket quipped that recession odds are “the best looking chart in finance right now.”

Source: Polymarket

Tech stock and crypto sell-off

The so-called “Trump bump” has dissipated, with the S&P 500 now lower than it was before his Nov. 5 US election victory. 

The index has lost almost 10% from last month’s high, and the Nasdaq is already in a correction, having lost 14% in just three weeks.

The Nasdaq has lost almost 10% this year. Source: Google Finance 

All US stock markets ended March 10 in the red, with the S&P 500 dropping 2.7% to its lowest level since September, the tech-heavy Nasdaq having its worst day since 2022 in a 4% fall, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping nearly 900 points or roughly 2.1%.

The Magnificent 7 — America’s top tech firms — have had a tumultuous start to the week, collectively shedding more than $750 billion in market cap in one day. Tesla tanked a whopping 15%, becoming the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 this year.

AI giant Nvidia lost 5.1%, Apple shed 4.9%, Meta fell 4.4% and Alphabet lost 4.5% on the day. 

Related: Biggest red weekly candle ever: 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

Meanwhile, crypto markets have plunged to their lowest point since early November, with a 7.5% fall in total market capitalization to $2.6 trillion on March 11, with around $240 billion exiting the space. 

Crypto market cap declines 1 month. Source: CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin (BTC) has also fallen through previous levels of support, dropping 4% on the day and hitting $76,784 before a minor recovery took the asset back to $79,000 at the time of writing. 

Magazine: Bitcoin’s odds of June highs, SOL’s $485M outflows, and more: Hodler’s Digest

The reporting of crypto scams in the United States is currently handled by a patchwork of agencies that should be streamlined to better protect consumers, says Coinbase chief security officer Philip Martin.

“It’s a very fragmented ecosystem. Where do you report these things? Well, you go here, you go there, you go somewhere else,” Martin told Cointelegraph at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas.

“I’d love to see that addressed and really brought under one umbrella, and that then helps us get a better idea of the magnitude of the problem.”

“That then helps drive resources from the whole federal government to do more to address some of the underlying causes, he added.

The US has dozens of federal and state-level agencies that handle reports of financial and internet crimes, one of which is the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which gives victims a way to report cybercrime.

Martin said that crypto scam victims are reporting to authorities, but it “feels like they’re screaming into the void to like IC3 or some of the government reporting websites.”

He added the various reporting sites should be consolidated “into a single reporting system that not only has all the data in one place but that also, in a perfect world, gives victims some visibility.”

On an earlier panel regarding online fraud, in which Martin took part, retired FBI agent Roger Campbell said many victims of crypto romance scams search the internet for how to report the crime and “all kinds of information comes up.”

“It’s kind of frustrating,” he said. Campbell gave the example of the UK as a country with an “awesome reporting system” where one portal is used to report all crimes, and victims can follow the status of their complaints.

FBI’s Roger Campbell (center left) on a panel with Coinbase’s Philip Martin (center right). Other panelists include former Twitter safety lead Yoel Roth (right) and MSNBC reporter Mackenzie Sigalos (left). Source: Turner Wright / Cointelegraph

“You report something to the IC3, you never hear anything back 99% of the time,” he added. “It gets frustrating again for the victim. They almost feel victimized again.”

Related: ‘Victim-blaming’ Americans can deter crypto scams reporting — Regulator 

Coinbase’s Martin told Cointelegraph that scams have a “lag in reporting,” and the way that attackers carry out schemes today won’t be known for months.

“A scam may have happened six months ago, and we might hear about it tomorrow,” he said.

Another difficulty in policing crypto scams, according to Martin, is that they’re “by and large” conducted from outside the US in countries including Myanmar and Laos, where “it can be hard for law enforcement to reach into those areas and really sort of strangle the stuff at the root. “

He said combatting crypto scams should focus on international relations and the US, “making it a priority to work with governments around the world so that there’s no safe haven for these scammers.”

Meanwhile, on March 10, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation said it received over 2,600 complaints last year and found seven types of scams it hadn’t yet discovered, including crypto mining, gaming, jobs and giveaway scams.

Magazine: Influencers shilling memecoin scams face severe legal consequences 

Additional reporting by Turner Wright.

Strategy (MSTR) shares have fallen 30% since its executive chairman and former CEO, Michael Saylor, was featured on the cover of Forbes, according to stock price data from Yahoo Finance.

Between Jan. 30 and March 10, Strategy’s shares dropped from $340.09 to $238.25. The tumble includes a 17% decline on March 10 amid the wider sell-off in the tech stock market.

Strategy one-day stock price. Source: Yahoo Finance

According to Yahoo Finance, the Nasdaq Composite, to which Strategy belongs, has fallen over 4% on March 10. Renewed fears of a recession, with the Atlanta Fed projecting a negative -2.4% gross domestic product growth for the first quarter of 2025, along with the increased rhetoric of trade wars, have sparked fear among investors in the equities market. CNN’s Fear & Greed index sits at “16” for the day, which signifies “Extreme Fear.”

Despite a falling stock price, Strategy remains unwavering in its commitment to a Bitcoin (BTC) strategy. The company announced on the same day plans to raise an additional $21 billion for “general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of Bitcoin and for working capital.” On Feb. 24, Strategy purchased 20,356 Bitcoin for nearly $2 billion.

Related: MicroStrategy, now ‘Strategy,’ records $670M net loss in Q4

Although Bitcoin recorded the largest weekly decline in the asset’s history on March 10, Strategy’s Bitcoin investment is still profitable by 18.9%. The company has purchased its BTC at an average cost of $66,423, well below the price of the asset at this time of writing.

While countless entrepreneurs have graced the Forbes cover over the years, some featured individuals have also fallen into controversy after the spotlight. One of those includes former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a bevy of financial crimes.

Strategy sparks debate, spawns copycats

Strategy’s move to acquire more Bitcoin by issuing stock and using debt has been met with its fair share of proponents and critics in the crypto space. Some believe it is a stroke of genius, a bet on the digital asset’s track record that has caused it to rise from nothing to a market cap of $1.56 trillion in 15 years.

Others have not been so kind, likening the company to a ticking time bomb or a Ponzi. In November, crypto investor Hedgex.eth called it the latter, writing on X that Saylor “will do more damage to Bitcoin than anyone else using endless leverage.” Haralabos Voulgaris wrote on X that “at some point, the next ‘unexpected’ BTC implosion will likely be tied to MSTR.”

Still, Strategy’s move has spawned copycats throughout the business world, with some companies buying Bitcoin for their treasuries and seeing a surge in investor enthusiasm. One of those companies is Metaplanet, whose share price rose 4,800% in 12 months after it announced its BTC buying strategy.

Magazine: Asia Express: ‘China’s MicroStrategy’ Meitu sells all its Bitcoin and Ethereum

Strategy (MSTR) shares have fallen 30% since its executive chairman and former CEO, Michael Saylor, was featured on the cover of Forbes, according to stock price data from Yahoo Finance.

Between Jan. 30 and March 10, Strategy’s shares dropped from $340.09 to $238.25. The tumble includes a 17% decline on March 10 amid the wider sell-off in the tech stock market.

Strategy one-day stock price. Source: Yahoo Finance

According to Yahoo Finance, the Nasdaq Composite, to which Strategy belongs, has fallen over 4% on March 10. Renewed fears of a recession, with the Atlanta Fed projecting a negative -2.4% gross domestic product growth for the first quarter of 2025, along with the increased rhetoric of trade wars, have sparked fear among investors in the equities market. CNN’s Fear & Greed index sits at “16” for the day, which signifies “Extreme Fear.”

Despite a falling stock price, Strategy remains unwavering in its commitment to a Bitcoin (BTC) strategy. The company announced on the same day plans to raise an additional $21 billion for “general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of Bitcoin and for working capital.” On Feb. 24, Strategy purchased 20,356 Bitcoin for nearly $2 billion.

Related: MicroStrategy, now ‘Strategy,’ records $670M net loss in Q4

Although Bitcoin recorded the largest weekly decline in the asset’s history on March 10, Strategy’s Bitcoin investment is still profitable by 18.9%. The company has purchased its BTC at an average cost of $66,423, well below the price of the asset at this time of writing.

While countless entrepreneurs have graced the Forbes cover over the years, some featured individuals have also fallen into controversy after the spotlight. One of those includes former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a bevy of financial crimes.

Strategy sparks debate, spawns copycats

Strategy’s move to acquire more Bitcoin by issuing stock and using debt has been met with its fair share of proponents and critics in the crypto space. Some believe it is a stroke of genius, a bet on the digital asset’s track record that has caused it to rise from nothing to a market cap of $1.56 trillion in 15 years.

Others have not been so kind, likening the company to a ticking time bomb or a Ponzi. In November, crypto investor Hedgex.eth called it the latter, writing on X that Saylor “will do more damage to Bitcoin than anyone else using endless leverage.” Haralabos Voulgaris wrote on X that “at some point, the next ‘unexpected’ BTC implosion will likely be tied to MSTR.”

Still, Strategy’s move has spawned copycats throughout the business world, with some companies buying Bitcoin for their treasuries and seeing a surge in investor enthusiasm. One of those companies is Metaplanet, whose share price rose 4,800% in 12 months after it announced its BTC buying strategy.

Magazine: Asia Express: ‘China’s MicroStrategy’ Meitu sells all its Bitcoin and Ethereum

The Trump administration may be intentionally creating uncertainty in the stock markets to corner Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell into lowering interest rates, according to a market commentator. 

Doing so increases the likelihood that the US won’t need to refinance around $7 trillion in debt it owes over the next few months, Bitcoin commentator Anthony Pompliano said in a March 10 X post.

US President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent are “taking matters into their own hands; they’re crashing asset prices in an attempt to force Jerome Powell to cut interest rates,” said Pompliano, who serves as the founder and CEO of Professional Capital Management and host of The Pomp Podcast.

In late January, Powell announced the Fed was not lowering interest rates from the current target range of 4.25% to 4.5% despite calls from Trump to do so.

Pompliano said the recent market panic has been driven in part by Trump’s tariffs — and has been used to create a more favorable bond market while lowering the 10-year Treasury yield.

He noted that the 10-year Treasury yield is already down from nearly 4.8% in January to 4.21% now — a sign that Trump’s purported strategy is “heading in the right direction.”

Source: Thomas Kralow

Whether Pompliano’s theory is correct or not, the stock market has been tanking of late, and crypto has been hit even harder.

Broad market index funds such as State Street’s Standard & Poor’s 500 index fund (SPY) fell 2.66% on March 10 alone, while the Nasdaq-100% fell 3.8%, Google Finance data shows.

Both indexes are down 7.32% and 10.7% over the last month, while Bitcoin (BTC) is down 27.4% from its $108,786 all-time high, and over $1.2 trillion has been wiped from the cryptocurrency market cap since Dec. 17.

If the stock market continues to tank, it will come down to a “who blinks first” contest between Trump and Powell, Pompliano said.

While Trump hasn’t confirmed such a strategy, Pompliano pointed to a Fox News interview on March 9 where Trump said: “Nobody ever gets rich when the interest rates are high because people can’t borrow money.”

Pompliano added that lowering interest rates would also benefit American consumers:

“The big goal, get interest rates down, and that will lead to more economic activity, thanks to access to cheap capital. Give the people cheap capital and they’ll go and do things with it.”

Related: Bitcoin dips to $80K in ‘ugly start,’ could retest key resistance: Hayes

CME FedWatch, a tool used to measure expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate change, has tipped a 96% probability that the target rate will remain between 4.25% and 4.50% following the Federal Reserve’s next meeting on March 19. 

However, it’s near 50-50 odds for the target rate to be lowered in the Federal Reserve’s following meeting on May 7.

The Federal Reserve typically avoids lowering interest rates when inflation is high, as one of its primary objectives is to maintain price stability.

However, a Trump-inflicted recession, or “Trumpcession,” as some call it, could force America’s top bank to start cutting again.

Magazine: Meet lawyer Max Burwick — ‘The ambulance chaser of crypto’

The Trump administration may be intentionally creating uncertainty in the stock markets to corner Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell into lowering interest rates, according to a market commentator. 

Doing so increases the likelihood that the US won’t need to refinance around $7 trillion in debt it owes over the next few months, Bitcoin commentator Anthony Pompliano said in a March 10 X post.

US President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent are “taking matters into their own hands; they’re crashing asset prices in an attempt to force Jerome Powell to cut interest rates,” said Pompliano, who serves as the founder and CEO of Professional Capital Management and host of The Pomp Podcast.

In late January, Powell announced the Fed was not lowering interest rates from the current target range of 4.25% to 4.5% despite calls from Trump to do so.

Pompliano said the recent market panic has been driven in part by Trump’s tariffs — and has been used to create a more favorable bond market while lowering the 10-year Treasury yield.

He noted that the 10-year Treasury yield is already down from nearly 4.8% in January to 4.21% now — a sign that Trump’s purported strategy is “heading in the right direction.”

Source: Thomas Kralow

Whether Pompliano’s theory is correct or not, the stock market has been tanking of late, and crypto has been hit even harder.

Broad market index funds such as State Street’s Standard & Poor’s 500 index fund (SPY) fell 2.66% on March 10 alone, while the Nasdaq-100% fell 3.8%, Google Finance data shows.

Both indexes are down 7.32% and 10.7% over the last month, while Bitcoin (BTC) is down 27.4% from its $108,786 all-time high, and over $1.2 trillion has been wiped from the cryptocurrency market cap since Dec. 17.

If the stock market continues to tank, it will come down to a “who blinks first” contest between Trump and Powell, Pompliano said.

While Trump hasn’t confirmed such a strategy, Pompliano pointed to a Fox News interview on March 9 where Trump said: “Nobody ever gets rich when the interest rates are high because people can’t borrow money.”

Pompliano added that lowering interest rates would also benefit American consumers:

“The big goal, get interest rates down, and that will lead to more economic activity, thanks to access to cheap capital. Give the people cheap capital and they’ll go and do things with it.”

Related: Bitcoin dips to $80K in ‘ugly start,’ could retest key resistance: Hayes

CME FedWatch, a tool used to measure expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate change, has tipped a 96% probability that the target rate will remain between 4.25% and 4.50% following the Federal Reserve’s next meeting on March 19. 

However, it’s near 50-50 odds for the target rate to be lowered in the Federal Reserve’s following meeting on May 7.

The Federal Reserve typically avoids lowering interest rates when inflation is high, as one of its primary objectives is to maintain price stability.

However, a Trump-inflicted recession, or “Trumpcession,” as some call it, could force America’s top bank to start cutting again.

Magazine: Meet lawyer Max Burwick — ‘The ambulance chaser of crypto’

The Trump administration may be intentionally creating uncertainty in the stock markets to corner Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell into lowering interest rates, according to a market commentator. 

Doing so increases the likelihood that the US won’t need to refinance around $7 trillion in debt it owes over the next few months, Bitcoin commentator Anthony Pompliano said in a March 10 X post.

US President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent are “taking matters into their own hands; they’re crashing asset prices in an attempt to force Jerome Powell to cut interest rates,” said Pompliano, who serves as the founder and CEO of Professional Capital Management and host of The Pomp Podcast.

In late January, Powell announced the Fed was not lowering interest rates from the current target range of 4.25% to 4.5% despite calls from Trump to do so.

Pompliano said the recent market panic has been driven in part by Trump’s tariffs — and has been used to create a more favorable bond market while lowering the 10-year Treasury yield.

He noted that the 10-year Treasury yield is already down from nearly 4.8% in January to 4.21% now — a sign that Trump’s purported strategy is “heading in the right direction.”

Source: Thomas Kralow

Whether Pompliano’s theory is correct or not, the stock market has been tanking of late, and crypto has been hit even harder.

Broad market index funds such as State Street’s Standard & Poor’s 500 index fund (SPY) fell 2.66% on March 10 alone, while the Nasdaq-100% fell 3.8%, Google Finance data shows.

Both indexes are down 7.32% and 10.7% over the last month, while Bitcoin (BTC) is down 27.4% from its $108,786 all-time high, and over $1.2 trillion has been wiped from the cryptocurrency market cap since Dec. 17.

If the stock market continues to tank, it will come down to a “who blinks first” contest between Trump and Powell, Pompliano said.

While Trump hasn’t confirmed such a strategy, Pompliano pointed to a Fox News interview on March 9 where Trump said: “Nobody ever gets rich when the interest rates are high because people can’t borrow money.”

Pompliano added that lowering interest rates would also benefit American consumers:

“The big goal, get interest rates down, and that will lead to more economic activity, thanks to access to cheap capital. Give the people cheap capital and they’ll go and do things with it.”

Related: Bitcoin dips to $80K in ‘ugly start,’ could retest key resistance: Hayes

CME FedWatch, a tool used to measure expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate change, has tipped a 96% probability that the target rate will remain between 4.25% and 4.50% following the Federal Reserve’s next meeting on March 19. 

However, it’s near 50-50 odds for the target rate to be lowered in the Federal Reserve’s following meeting on May 7.

The Federal Reserve typically avoids lowering interest rates when inflation is high, as one of its primary objectives is to maintain price stability.

However, a Trump-inflicted recession, or “Trumpcession,” as some call it, could force America’s top bank to start cutting again.

Magazine: Meet lawyer Max Burwick — ‘The ambulance chaser of crypto’

A California financial regulator says users reported seven new types of crypto and AI scams that it hadn’t seen before through thousands of complaints in 2024. 

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) said in a March 10 statement that it received 2,668 complaints in 2024 and found seven types of scams they didn’t have on record yet, such as fake Bitcoin (BTC) mining schemes, where fraudsters offer fake investments in mining. 

The DFPI also received complaints about fake crypto gaming schemes, where users are encouraged to deposit funds only to have their wallets drained, and fraudsters offering fake jobs that require victims to transfer crypto and provide private information.

Source: California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation

Victims also reported the theft of private keys through fake airdrops, fake investment group scams in WhatsApp or Telegram, AI Investment scams offering unusually high returns and losing their crypto after interacting with certain sham websites. 

The AI industry experienced significant growth in 2024, reaching a market cap of $638 billion, according to Precedence Research.

There was also a notable rise in crimeware-as-a-service (CaaS), where experienced hackers and cybercriminals sell their tools and services to less experienced offenders for a price.

DFPI Commissioner KC Mohseni said the regulator is urging caution when interacting with unknown platforms and to “verify website domains to avoid fraudulent imitations, and stay wary of crypto recovery scam sites.”

Through its partnership with the State, the DFPI says it shut down more than 26 fraudulent crypto websites and uncovered $4.6 million in user losses last year. 

California DOJ shuts down 42 crypto scam websites

California’s Department of Justice (DOJ) took down 42 crypto scam websites in 2024 that stole $6.5 million from victims, with an average loss per person of $146,306.

In a March 10 statement, the California DOJ said that because international fraudsters often carry out scams, they are difficult to prosecute and arrest.

Common threads among the scam websites were promises of high returns, no contact information, offers of prizes for signing up, and no listings on legitimate crypto industry websites such as CoinMarketCap, the California DOJ said. 

Related: Crypto lost to exploits, scams, hits $1.5B in February with Bybit hack: CertiK

A report from on-chain security firm Cyvers identified pig butchering schemes as one of the most costly in 2024, estimating the scam cost the industry over $5.5 billion across 200,000 identified cases. 

Meanwhile, blockchain security firm CertiK’s annual Web3 security report flagged crypto phishing attacks, which cost users $1 billion across 296 incidents, as the most significant security threat of 2024.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s odds of June highs, SOL’s $485M outflows, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 2 – 8

Ether (ETH) price dropped below $2,600 on Feb. 24 and has since struggled to sustain a meaningful recovery. The latest correction toward the $2,000 level triggered over $918 million in leveraged long (bull) liquidations in ETH futures within 15 days, according to CoinGlass data.

Traders now question what needs to happen for ETH to break above $2,500.

Ether/USD (left) vs. total altcoin market cap (right). Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph

Ether has underperformed the altcoin market by 10% during this period, as shown in the chart above.

More concerningly, this decline followed a memecoin frenzy that boosted Ethereum’s main competitor, Solana (SOL). This suggests that additional factors are hampering ETH’s price, and four major issues need to be addressed before Ether can reclaim a bull market.

Ethereum’s upgrades and increased competition 

For some, the upcoming Pectra upgrade on the Ethereum network falls short of what is needed to drive a meaningful turnaround, whether it lowers base-layer transaction fees or significantly enhances usability.

Even if the changes do improve the user experience, analysts argue that Ethereum still lacks interoperability across different layer-2 solutions, both in terms of liquidity and user accessibility.

Recent reports of empty blocks on the Ethereum testnet have added to risk perception at a time when investors were already skeptical. Regardless of whether this issue is unrelated to the upcoming upgrade or easily fixable, some traders worry that any potential delay could be perceived negatively by the market.

In essence, fear remains the dominant sentiment, and for this to change, several pressing issues must be resolved.

Critics argue that part of ETH investors’ disappointment stems from the rise of indirect competitors, such as the modular layer-1 Berachain, which focuses on integrating liquidity and governance for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

7-day protocol fees ranking, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Berachain has successfully captured over $3 billion in deposits, as measured by total value locked (TVL) on DefiLlama.

Similarly, Hyperliquid, a perpetual futures application hosted on its own blockchain, has surpassed $2.8 billion in open interest, outpacing competitors on the Ethereum network. In many ways, competition is growing beyond the traditional model.

For ETH’s price to regain bullish momentum, traders need reassurance that the Ethereum network offers practical and clear advantages for its projects and users. Ultimately, Ethereum’s focus on decentralization and incremental improvements—whether justified or not—could be stemming demand compared to its competition.  

Weak onchain activity and institutional demand

The lack of demand from institutional investors is evident in the spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, which were negative in nine of the last 10 trading days, resulting in $406 million in net withdrawals.

Some analysts suggested that demand could surge following the eventual approval of native staking on Ethereum ETFs, but this theory is now less certain, given that the ETH supply is increasing at 0.7% annually.

Lower demand for blockchain processing has reduced the burn-fee mechanism, causing Ether to become inflationary. As a result, the adjusted native staking reward is now below 2.5%, while deposits in stablecoins yield up to 4.5% in most DeFi projects.

Ultimately, the eventual inclusion of staking in spot ETFs is unlikely to be a game-changer for institutional demand.

Related: DeFi TVL drops by $45B, erasing gains since Trump election

Lastly, traders are concerned that the US Securities and Exchange Commission may approve a spot Solana ETF in 2025, creating direct competition for investors who currently only have access to Ether and Bitcoin (BTC) ETF products.

Therefore, for ETH price to reach $2,500 and beyond, investors need clearer evidence that Ethereum offers sustainable advantages beyond its first-mover advantage.

In summary, Ether’s future depends on Ethereum network upgrades, increased network usage, a subsequent decline in supply, and reduced friction for layer-2 interoperability, ensuring that the entire ecosystem benefits from its growth.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Ether (ETH) price dropped below $2,600 on Feb. 24 and has since struggled to sustain a meaningful recovery. The latest correction toward the $2,000 level triggered over $918 million in leveraged long (bull) liquidations in ETH futures within 15 days, according to CoinGlass data.

Traders now question what needs to happen for ETH to break above $2,500.

Ether/USD (left) vs. total altcoin market cap (right). Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph

Ether has underperformed the altcoin market by 10% during this period, as shown in the chart above.

More concerningly, this decline followed a memecoin frenzy that boosted Ethereum’s main competitor, Solana (SOL). This suggests that additional factors are hampering ETH’s price, and four major issues need to be addressed before Ether can reclaim a bull market.

Ethereum’s upgrades and increased competition 

For some, the upcoming Pectra upgrade on the Ethereum network falls short of what is needed to drive a meaningful turnaround, whether it lowers base-layer transaction fees or significantly enhances usability.

Even if the changes do improve the user experience, analysts argue that Ethereum still lacks interoperability across different layer-2 solutions, both in terms of liquidity and user accessibility.

Recent reports of empty blocks on the Ethereum testnet have added to risk perception at a time when investors were already skeptical. Regardless of whether this issue is unrelated to the upcoming upgrade or easily fixable, some traders worry that any potential delay could be perceived negatively by the market.

In essence, fear remains the dominant sentiment, and for this to change, several pressing issues must be resolved.

Critics argue that part of ETH investors’ disappointment stems from the rise of indirect competitors, such as the modular layer-1 Berachain, which focuses on integrating liquidity and governance for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

7-day protocol fees ranking, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Berachain has successfully captured over $3 billion in deposits, as measured by total value locked (TVL) on DefiLlama.

Similarly, Hyperliquid, a perpetual futures application hosted on its own blockchain, has surpassed $2.8 billion in open interest, outpacing competitors on the Ethereum network. In many ways, competition is growing beyond the traditional model.

For ETH’s price to regain bullish momentum, traders need reassurance that the Ethereum network offers practical and clear advantages for its projects and users. Ultimately, Ethereum’s focus on decentralization and incremental improvements—whether justified or not—could be stemming demand compared to its competition.  

Weak onchain activity and institutional demand

The lack of demand from institutional investors is evident in the spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, which were negative in nine of the last 10 trading days, resulting in $406 million in net withdrawals.

Some analysts suggested that demand could surge following the eventual approval of native staking on Ethereum ETFs, but this theory is now less certain, given that the ETH supply is increasing at 0.7% annually.

Lower demand for blockchain processing has reduced the burn-fee mechanism, causing Ether to become inflationary. As a result, the adjusted native staking reward is now below 2.5%, while deposits in stablecoins yield up to 4.5% in most DeFi projects.

Ultimately, the eventual inclusion of staking in spot ETFs is unlikely to be a game-changer for institutional demand.

Related: DeFi TVL drops by $45B, erasing gains since Trump election

Lastly, traders are concerned that the US Securities and Exchange Commission may approve a spot Solana ETF in 2025, creating direct competition for investors who currently only have access to Ether and Bitcoin (BTC) ETF products.

Therefore, for ETH price to reach $2,500 and beyond, investors need clearer evidence that Ethereum offers sustainable advantages beyond its first-mover advantage.

In summary, Ether’s future depends on Ethereum network upgrades, increased network usage, a subsequent decline in supply, and reduced friction for layer-2 interoperability, ensuring that the entire ecosystem benefits from its growth.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.