Ethereum’s social buzz has cooled to levels that some analysts compare to the period before last year’s powerful rally, but experts say that doesn’t automatically mean another big surge is imminent.
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The feeling reflects past lows
According to Santiment analyst Brian Quinlivan, social media sentiment around Ethereum has declined and is now near the low range seen ahead of the 2025 rally.
Quinlivan suggested that the drop in talks “argues against too much of a drop,” and he pointed out that the price often spiked after strong public doubts.
On August 23, Ether hit a new all-time high of around $4,900, a move that followed a recovery from a yearly low near $1,470 in April, based on CoinGecko data.
This rally pushed the token above its 2021 high. Since then, Ether has fallen approximately 36% from the peak and was trading at $3,089 at the time of the report.
Market shocks and liquidity events
Reports have revealed that a massive selloff on October 10 triggered nearly $20 billion in losses in the crypto market, and this event is linked to the most recent pullback. The selloff affected many positions and was followed by broader risk aversion.
Fear indicators for cryptocurrencies are low. One index posted a Fear Score of 29 on Sunday, while the Altcoin Season Index showed a Bitcoin Season Score of 34 out of 100 – a reading that indicates money has been flowing into Bitcoin rather than altcoins over the past 90 days. This combination of metrics is closely monitored by traders who evaluate their positions based on changes in sentiment.
Network Activity and Staking Interest
Quinlivan also highlighted on-chain signals that he finds positive. According to him, activity on the Ethereum network has increased and staking has attracted more attention from users.
Increasing bandwidth is safer than reducing latency
With PeerDAS and ZKP, we know how to scale, and potentially we can scale thousands of times over the status quo. The figures are becoming much more favorable than before (for example see the analysis here, before and after sharding…
– vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 8, 2026
Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin joined the public debate on technical improvements. Buterin said in an extended X article that PeerDAS, which arrived with the Fusaka upgrade, along with zero-knowledge proofs and sharding, will push Ethereum toward much higher throughput.
He added that Layer 2 networks like Base, Polygon and Optimism will still be needed because many use cases demand even faster speeds than the main network.
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Institutional opinions and market positioning
Based on reports, Coinbase Asset Management President Anthony Bassili said in November 2025 that investors tend to consider Bitcoin first and Ethereum second when building a core portfolio.
This stance reflects the fact that many large investors now treat Ether as the second default market cap asset rather than a marginal bet. With this status, downside expectations may be less than for riskier tokens. Still, sentiment can remain low for long periods of time, and being highly ranked does not eliminate volatility.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
