Some thoughts about Ethereum: Bitcoin is irreplaceable and POW has a monopolistic effect. The product positioning has been very clear since it was transformed from a decentralized currency into a sovereign reserve asset, and its primary purpose is to replace gold. Even if Ethereum does not switch to POS, it is difficult to compete with Bitcoin in this positioning. Ethereum's positioning has changed many times from the initial global computer, to the Token issuance platform in the ICO era, to the financial settlement layer in the defi era, and then to the decentralized application layer in the web3 era. But in essence, they are all asset issuance and trading, decentralized stock exchanges. Exchanges also have the Matthew effect, but they do not have the monopoly of Bitcoin as a digital reserve asset. Most of Ethereum's competitors are from the perspective of reducing transaction fees and user usage thresholds. EOS and TRON in the Ethereum Killer 1.0 era have different endings: EOS, which was originally based on high hopes, has become the dust of history, while TRON, which was regarded as an air coin, has found its market positioning from stablecoin transfers. There are many factors for the failure of EOS, but EOS's complex account permissions and transfer methods have undoubtedly prevented new users from understanding and entering. Important reasons. Although TRON's code borrows from EOS's dPOS mechanism, the account follows the Ethereum model, and supporting gas fees is undoubtedly the right path, paving the way for the subsequent USDT payment route. As Ethereum Killer 2.0, SOL followed the same logic when it was released in 2019: high performance and low fees, lowering the threshold for users to use it. In the 2020 defi summer, because the price of ETH itself was not high, the gas fee was acceptable to mainstream users, and the low fee advantage of SOL was not obvious at this time. But in 2021, as the price of ETH increased by more than 10 times, new users could no longer use it. As a result, faster ETH (such as the POA version of BSC) and various L2s were created to take over this part of the traffic. However, the chains cannot communicate with each other and cannot form a network effect, which brings market entry opportunities to competitors. In the end, SOL became the preferred issuance and trading platform for new assets in this round of market. Ethereum's real opponent is the exchange, including stock exchanges, CEX and other platform-based public chains. Exchanges are data-intensive businesses, and order depth and transaction speed are the core. Uniswap's LP mechanism has solved the problem of transaction depth to a certain extent, but the transaction speed and fees are still not comparable to CEX. The political correctness of "decentralization" is not as important as transaction efficiency. In the face of actual needs, users will vote with their feet. The regulatory arbitrage advantage is no longer there. From stock exchanges to CEX to on-chain DEX, the regulatory threshold has gradually lowered. After the bull market in 2021, Ethereum has turned from the wild west of that year to regulation. As the core entrance for users, including node operators, wallets, DEX, etc., whether they are willing or not, must join the regulation to ensure operation. In fact, gray funds are very important for the financial market. Blocking the entry of this part of funds is equivalent to cutting off their own financial path. For new players, compliant assets are difficult to meet the high-risk and high-return needs, so they turn to new platforms with looser supervision. In the post-Ethereum era, with Trump coming to power, the tokenization process of traditional assets has accelerated. It is believed that more traditional entities will launch their own public chains, not excluding those technology giants. However, the entity's own traffic and data may not be willing to flow out, and using mature L2 tools to build will be an option. As the DA layer, if Ethereum can capture this part of the Rollup fee, it may be a key point to change the current situation. On the other hand, technology giants tend to build their own systems and build independent L1s. Then the public chain world will only become more chaotic and enter an unpredictable future. This kind of chaos will further highlight the hard-won consensus of Bitcoin. #Bitcoin #BTC #Ethereum #SOL #EOS #TRON #L2 #L1 #ETH