Analyst Rejects ETH Death Talk, Stablecoins Hit New Highs
The “Ethereum is dead” takes never really disappear — they just hibernate until ETH underperforms Bitcoin long enough for crypto Twitter to smell blood. This week, that familiar narrative got a direct rebuttal from trader and MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe, who argued that Ethereum’s multi-year slide versus BTC is being misread, and that the market is already showing signs of a 2019-style turning point.
Van de Poppe’s main point is simple: a long downtrend in the ETH/BTC ratio doesn’t automatically equal Ethereum’s “demise.” In a post on Jan. 11, he said ETH has been “called dead” after trending down against Bitcoin for years — but claimed that since April 2025, the pair bottomed and Ethereum entered a new growth phase, echoing the pattern seen in 2019.
That framing matters because the ETH/BTC chart is one of crypto’s favorite mood rings. When ETH lags BTC, it’s often treated as a referendum on Ethereum’s relevance: network fees, Layer-2 competition, developer mindshare, and whether users are migrating to faster, cheaper chains. And yes, Ethereum has had plenty of doubters lately — even mainstream outlets have described the network as facing a “midlife crisis” amid intensifying competition.
Still, van de Poppe says the “Ethereum death narrative” is missing the bigger picture: stablecoins and real on-chain usage.
Why the “Death” Narrative Keeps Coming Back
ForkLog’s recap of van de Poppe’s argument points to a key timeline on the ETH/BTC pair: after hitting a low around 0.017 in April 2025, ETH/BTC rebounded to about 0.043 in August, before sliding back near 0.034 during an October correction.
To bulls, that looks like a bottoming process: ugly, slow, and psychologically exhausting — exactly the kind of chart that convinces people the asset is “over,” right before it rotates back into favor. (If you’ve been in crypto long enough, you’ve seen this movie.)
To skeptics, though, the ETH/BTC weakness has been tied to structural concerns: Ethereum’s roadmap complexity, Layer-2 networks capturing activity and fees, and the growing pull of alternative ecosystems.
So what evidence would actually move this debate beyond vibes? Van de Poppe is betting the answer is stablecoin growth on Ethereum.
The Bull Case
In the same thread, van de Poppe highlighted what he sees as the strongest “fundamentals” signal: stablecoin supply on Ethereum rose more than 65% during 2025, and is roughly double the level seen around the 2021 peak — even though ETH’s price hasn’t, in his view, fully reflected that demand.
ForkLog also noted that Ethereum remains the single biggest home for on-chain dollars. DefiLlama’s chain dashboard shows Ethereum with about $163B in stablecoins market cap and USDT dominance around 52% (the exact number moves with markets, but the headline is dominance).
That’s a big deal for two reasons:
- Stablecoins are the “payments layer” of crypto. Whether people are trading, remitting, arbitraging, or settling DeFi positions, stablecoins are typically the unit of account.
- Stablecoins are sticky. Memecoins come and go. But stablecoin liquidity tends to remain where the deepest venues, integrations, and counterparties are.
In plain English: if Ethereum were truly “dying,” it would be strange to see the network still attracting (and keeping) a massive share of the world’s on-chain dollars.
The Usage Argument
Beyond supply, there’s the question of activity. Token Terminal data cited in a recent TradingView/Cointelegraph report says stablecoin transfer volume on Ethereum topped $8 trillion in Q4 2025, a new all-time high, and nearly double the level recorded in Q2.
Now, “transfer volume” can include a mix of flows — exchange settlement, DeFi loops, treasury movement, and large internal transfers — so it’s not a perfect “real users” count. But even with that caveat, $8T in a quarter is not the kind of number you associate with a chain that’s supposedly fading into irrelevance.
There’s also a broader “settlement layer” argument forming around Ethereum: the same TradingView/Cointelegraph report notes Ethereum’s continued lead in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, citing RWA.xyz for market share context.
The Bear Case
Still, it’s not all bullish confirmation. A separate ForkLog piece from Jan. 8 highlighted a warning from CryptoQuant analyst CryptoOnchain, who pointed to Ethereum’s Coinbase Premium Gap turning negative — often interpreted as weaker U.S. spot demand — and argued this could reduce the odds of a clean breakout above $3,300 without stronger institutional buying.
That push-and-pull is basically the Ethereum story right now:
- Usage and stablecoin gravity look strong (bullish).
- Market structure and institutional flows can still look hesitant (cautious).
As of ForkLog’s Jan. 12 update, ETH was trading around $3,118. DefiLlama’s dashboard around the same period showed ETH near $3,133 — close enough to call it “low-$3,100s” without overfitting the exact tick.
What This Means for the Crypto Market in 2026
If you zoom out, the debate isn’t really “Is Ethereum dead?” It’s: what metrics matter most now?
Price-only critics focus on ETH/BTC underperformance and competitive pressure. Ethereum supporters increasingly point to the boring stuff that actually scales: stablecoin liquidity, settlement volume, and the network effects that form around infrastructure.