Ethereum Price: Here's What Prevents It From Rallying
Ethereum 
ETHUSD, the second largest cryptocurrency, might lose its opportunity to pump as it fails to become a "store of value" instrument. The acceleration of ETH burn process might help the oldest programmable blockchain to reclaim its status.
Ethereum's ETHUSD potential to pump is capped, crypto researcher says
Ethereum ETHUSD fails to be accepted as a "store of value," which, in turn, prevents it from pumping. Without the "SoV premium," other catalysts are not powerful enough to change the status quo, cryptocurrency researcher Ignas (@DefiIgnas) shared in an X post today, Oct. 4, 2025.
Ignas | DeFi@DefiIgnas10월 04, 2025$ETH potential to pump is capped by its failure to be accepted as SoV.
To buy and hold $ETH now you need to believe in its ability to become a store of value asset.
Yes, $ETH can run to 10k with no fundamental change, but the current narrative of tokenization and RWAs is not… pic.twitter.com/JBn2oQupFE
Narratives like real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and stablecoins can even "backfire" for Ethereum's ETHUSD adoption and attractiveness as there are more blockchains tailored for privacy-focused use cases with low fees and fast transaction confirmation.
The silver lining is that alternative L1s — blockchains running on non-EVM virtual machines — lack even the potential of store of value as none of them can compete with Ethereum's decentralization metrics and neutrality.
By contrast, native yield mechanisms and its own DeFi ecosystem are two key pillars of Ethereum's ETHUSD potential. At the same time, to realize them, Ethereum ETHUSD should increase its burn rate to become deflationary again:
So if you buy and hold $ETH now, you should believe that Ethereum will find a way to tax the L2s and adoption will grow enough to burn supply.
Once this is achieved, Ethereum ETHUSD might "push into BTC territory" and find its place in portfolios for both passive institutional and retail holders.
Ethereum ETHUSD inflation rate in 2025: What to know
Ethereum ETHUSD might outshine Bitcoin 
BTCUSD in this race since the orange coin has known issues with its security budget and low miner fees, Ignas admits.
At the same time, hardcore Ethereum ETHUSD proponents defend its status as a better store of value than Bitcoin BTCUSD, as U.Today previously reported.
Ethereum ETHUSD became deflationary after the introduction of periodical fee burn events with the EIP 1559 activation in 2021. However, it works only when destroyed fees outnumber new Ether issued.
As of 2025, that's not the case: Ethereum's ETHUSD supply is growing with a 0.16% per year rate. For the last time, the network was deflationary in early Q1, 2025.