Ethereum faces the risk of becoming outdated due to "dangerous complacency" before 2030

Ethereum remains the most influential blockchain ever built. This network pioneered the concept of programmable money, laying the foundation for decentralized finance (DeFi), and is currently the platform with the highest security standards for deploying smart contracts worldwide.

According to traditional metrics, Ethereum’s dominant position is almost uncontested: the largest developer ecosystem, the highest locked-in value, and a central role in the settlement of regulated stablecoins.

However, technological obsolescence rarely manifests as a sudden collapse. It often occurs quietly, obscured by metrics that describe past market performance rather than future directions.

The phrase “we still have TVL” (Total Value Locked – the total locked value) has become a shorthand for this internal contradiction within Ethereum. TVL was once a success metric, but increasingly reflects assets sitting idle as collateral rather than active capital flow.

The current concern is that the ecosystem relies on legacy indicators, while the velocity of money is shifting elsewhere. Whether this divergence remains significant by 2030 has become a central question for the entire industry.

Data Divergence

The “flippening” story is resurfacing, but this time driven by activity levels rather than market capitalization. Data shows a clear divergence.

According to Nansen, Ethereum’s annualized revenue in USD has decreased by about 76% compared to the same period, down to approximately $604 million. This decline follows upgrades Dencun and Fusaka, which significantly cut fees that Layer 2 networks pay.

In contrast, Solana generated around $657 million during the same period, while TRON earned nearly $601 million, mainly due to the high transfer speed of stablecoins in emerging markets.

The gap becomes even more apparent when looking at Artemis data, a metric focused on user behavior rather than capital depth. By 2025, Solana handles about 98 million monthly active users and 34 billion transactions, surpassing Ethereum in most high-frequency categories.

Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen, warns that neglecting these metrics could lead to dangerous complacency. He states that Ethereum “must always stay vigilant” against unfavorable data, even when TVL remains high. The issue is not just competition but the temptation to defend the lead with increasingly less relevant measures as the primary use cases of crypto evolve.

However, a fair assessment requires nuance. If Artemis shows Solana winning the “volume battle,” Ethereum is pursuing a different front: economic density.

A significant portion of Solana’s 34 billion transactions comes from arbitrage bots and consensus messages. These activities generate large volumes, but the economic value per byte of data may be lower compared to high-value payment streams on Ethereum.

As a result, the market is splitting: Solana is gradually becoming the “NASDAQ” of high-speed transactions, while Ethereum maintains the role of “FedWire” for the final layer of settlement.

Urgency Crisis

However, categorizing all competition as “spam” could cause Ethereum to miss a deeper cultural shift. The threat is not just user exodus but the loss of urgency—a sense of immediacy to retain users—that has been missing for years.

Kyle Samani, Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital, summarized this perspective when sharing why he left the ecosystem. He said his faith in ETH was shattered at Devcon3 in Cancun in November 2017, when ETH was the fastest asset to reach a market cap of $100 billion, gas fees spiked, and the need for scalability was urgent but lacked swift action.

This lack of “wartime thinking” risks Ethereum facing a MySpace-like fate: not disappearing due to lack of users but losing its position as engagement shifts to platforms offering smoother experiences.

For Ethereum, this smooth experience is expected to come from Layer 2 rollups like Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism. While these solutions have helped reduce fees, their “modular” roadmap creates fragmented user experiences.

Furthermore, as liquidity disperses across multiple discrete rollups and Layer 2s pay “rental” fees to Ethereum, the direct economic link between user activity and ETH’s accumulated value weakens.

The risk is that Ethereum remains the security layer, but profit margins and brand loyalty flow upward to the Layer 2s.

Shift Toward Acceleration

In this context, the Ethereum Foundation has begun adjusting its operational stance. The long-standing view of “protocol fossilization”—making as few changes as possible—has softened since early 2025, shifting focus toward rapid iteration and performance improvements.

Leadership changes have reinforced this direction. The appointment of Tomasz Stańczak, founder of Nethermind, and Hsiao-Wei Wang as CEO signals a new focus on technical urgency.

The clearest expression of this shift is the deployment of upgrades like Pectra and Fusaka this year. Simultaneously, the “Beam Chain” roadmap proposed by researcher Justin Drake aims to overhaul the consensus layer, targeting a 4-second slot time and transaction finality within a single slot.

This indicates Ethereum is seriously addressing scalability directly on the base layer, aiming to compete on performance with integrated chains like Solana without sacrificing decentralization—the key factor that makes ETH a high-quality collateral asset.

It’s a high-stakes gamble to upgrade a network valued at around $400 billion that is already operational. Yet, leadership seems to have calculated that the risk of failure in execution is now lower than the risk of being left behind by the market.

Final Verdict

The “we still have TVL” argument is a comfort blanket looking at the past. In financial markets, liquidity is pragmatic and will stay where it is treated best.

Ethereum’s bullish case remains compelling but hinges entirely on execution. If Beam Chain is deployed swiftly and the Layer 2 ecosystem resolves fragmentation to create a unified front, Ethereum could solidify its role as the global settlement layer.

Conversely, if usage continues to surge on high-speed chains while Ethereum becomes merely a “collateral asset store,” the network risks becoming systemically important but commercially secondary.

By 2030, the market may care less about the “history” of smart contracts and more about invisible, frictionless infrastructure.

The coming years will be a decisive test of whether Ethereum can remain the default choice for that infrastructure or become just a specialized component within a larger picture.

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