According to CoinDesk, cryptocurrency management company Bitwise stated in a report on Tuesday that Ethereum (ETH) seems to be less popular now, but its underperformance may reverse before the end of the year.

Bitwise pointed out that the price of Ethereum has not changed much since the beginning of the year, while Bitcoin (BTC) has risen by 38% and Solana's SOL has risen by 31%. The report states that the recent underperformance of Ethereum is due to risks related to the November US presidential election, increasing competition from Solana and other memory blockchains, a challenged token economy, and mixed reactions from the launch of US Ethereum spot exchange traded funds (ETFs).

However, the situation is not entirely pessimistic. Bitwise points out that the majority of stablecoins are issued on Ethereum, with over 60% of decentralized financial (DeFi) assets locked onto this blockchain, and the popular prediction market Polymarket also settles on this Layer 1 chain. Bitwise investment gains, Matt Hougan wrote:

Ethereum has the most active developers, active users, and a market value five times larger than its closest competitors

Hougan also stated that Ethereum is "like Microsoft in a memory blockchain," and everyone wants to talk about newer companies and their game changing technologies such as Google, Slack, and Zoom, "but Microsoft is still bigger than them combined.

The Bitwise report states that the challenge of Ethereum is not "life or death" and the market may re evaluate the cryptocurrency as the US election approaches, stating that "it looks like a potential reverse bet before the end of the year".