Is the Ethereum Blockchain in Crisis?

For some months now, there have been many doubts about the “stability” of the Ethereum blockchain.

For some months now, there have been many doubts about the “stability” of the Ethereum blockchain.

It is not about doubts related to the technical functioning of this blockchain, which shows no signs of having problems from this point of view, but related to the actual use by the users.

Ethereum in fact was not created as a financial asset, like Bitcoin, but as a network of computers that executes smart contracts in a decentralized, trustless, and uncensorable manner. Its goal has always been to provide a service to users, rather than to provide a financial asset.

In the Ethereum white paper in 2014 Vitalik Buterin wrote:

“What Ethereum intends to provide is a blockchain with a fully integrated Turing-complete programming language that can be used to create ‘contracts’ which can be used to encode arbitrary state transition functions, allowing users to create any of the systems described above, as well as many others that we have not yet imagined, simply by writing the logic in a few lines of code”.

Ethereum Blockchain in crisis?

Despite this, over time the real great success of Ethereum has been to enable the launch of many tokens on the crypto markets, starting from the ICO boom of 2018 and passing through the memecoin boom of 2021.

For example, SHIB of Shiba Inu was launched as a token on Ethereum.

Starting from 2023, however, Ethereum began to face competition from Solana from this point of view, so much so that now it is mainly on Solana that new tokens are launched.

The fact is that on Solana it is so much simpler, cheaper, and faster to launch a token that it has made this activity accessible to practically everyone. Ethereum, on the other hand, has fallen a bit behind in this regard.

The symbol of this handover was the launch of Donald Trump’s official token, on January 18 of this year, launched specifically on the Solana blockchain and not on that of Ethereum.

Despite this, the number of average daily transactions recorded on the Ethereum blockchain does not appear to be in decline.

During 2021, this number had settled well above the one million mark, and in 2023 it had settled around this level.

While Solana was stealing the role of leader of memecoins from Ethereum, between 2024 and 2025, the number of average daily transactions recorded on the latter blockchain rose first above 1.1 million, and then also above 1.2 million.

Not even with the downturn of 2025 has it returned to a million, so from a technical standpoint, the Ethereum blockchain does not seem to be in a bear market at all.

The problem of DeFi

The real problem is of a purely financial nature.

For example, the TVL of DeFi on Ethereum at the end of 2024 reached a peak of 77 billion dollars, which is significantly lower than the all-time high of 109 billion in November 2021.

Furthermore, during 2025 it fell below 50 billion, which is a level in line with that of twelve months ago.

Although these numbers do not suggest at all that there is a real crisis underway, they do denote a bit of suffering.

The dominance of Ethereum in the TVL DeFi is still very high (52%), but Solana is growing (7%).

The fact is that at the end of 2024 Solana recorded its all-time high for TVL DeFi, reaching nearly 12 billion dollars for the first time in history. The peak in 2021, however, had stopped at 10 billion.

However, even for Solana, 2025 saw a strong decline, down to the current 6.6 billion dollars, which is nevertheless a figure significantly higher than that of twelve months ago.

In other words, it is evident that Solana has nibbled away a bit of Ethereum’s TVL share.

The DEX

Where the competition from Solana is greater is in the DEX, or the decentralized exchange.

The fact is that with significantly lower fees, Solana takes away from Ethereum all the users who trade small amounts on DEX, and this has also led to the overtaking.

Taking as a reference only the total daily trading volumes on DEX, those on Ethereum had a peak of 7.6 billion dollars in 2024, with an average at the end of the year of about 3 billion.

Instead, those on Solana experienced an incredible spike to over 35 billion dollars the day after the launch of Trump’s memecoin, and an average at the end of 2024 close to 5 billion.

Analysing the monthly volumes, on DEX on Ethereum in December 20