Key Takeaways
- Little has been spared in the market dip over the past few months.
- However, alternative Layer 1 smart contract platforms have fared particularly poorly against Ethereum.
- Despite its problems and critics, Ethereum remains the leading decentralized protocol.
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Amidst a sustained crypto market correction that began last November, many of the Layer 1 smart contract platforms meant to compete with Ethereum have been severely depressed in terms of price. While Ethereum itself is down as well, it has not fared so poorly as some of the protocols designed to challenge it.
Bleeding Against Ethereum
Ethereum may be struggling alongside the rest of the crypto market, but it is holding strong relative to some of its core competitors.
On Nov. 10, Ethereum reached its all-time high on the same day that its digital asset predecessor Bitcoin did, soaring to over $4,891, per CoinGecko. Since then, Ethereum has fallen to approximately $2,350 at press time. This represents a nearly 52% decline from its all-time high, but this pales in comparison to the damage done to holders of many alternative Layer 1 smart contract platforms.
Solana, which emerged in 2021 as a chief competitor to Ethereum, reached its all-time high of around $260 only days before Ethereum reached its own. At today’s prices of $69, the Layer 1 favorite of Sam Bankman-Fried is down roughly 73%.
Cardano has fared even worse. ADA is down 78.5% from its all-time high of $3.09 in September last year. Polkadot, a competitor that, like Cardano, was founded by an Ethereum co-founder, hit $55 last November but is trading today for under $12. That is a 79% loss, despite the project having achieved many of the key milestones in its roadmap, such as the launching of its parachains.
Fantom is down 83.5%, a collapse that was worsened by the exodus of the “Godfather of DeFi,” Andre Cronje, from the DeFi space along with his colleague Anton Nell, another key contributor to the Fantom ecosystem. Before his departure, Cronje led the launch of Solidly, a new liquidity network in Fantom’s ecosystem, but that has not been enough for it to hold against Ethereum. Finally, exactly one year ago today, Internet Computer hit its all-time high of more than $700; at its current price of $11, it has shed 98.5% of its market value.
With the Merge on the horizon, as well as many Layer 2 scaling efforts, there is also a light at the end of the tunnel for Ethereum that other smart contract platforms lack. While Ethereum has its share of problems and critics, its status as the industry leader remains largely unchallenged.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH, DOT, and several other cryptocurrencies.
