That is if Ethereum can weather three big price hurdles ahead of it in September,

The Dencun upgrade’s introduction of low-cost blobs for Layer-2 blockchains to quickly scale the network to peers has unleashed a torrent of activity on Ethereum’s decentralized smart contract network.

Since then, gas fees in ETH on the base layer of Ethereum have declined significantly. Although that has reduced validators’ revenues, there has been a blossoming of activity on low-fee L2s.

Ethereum L2 monthly active users doubled after Dencun took effect in March. Meanwhile, fees to use Base, Mantra, Starknet, Blast, and OP Mainnet have declined dramatically.

But Ethereum has struggled this year to reflect its improvements and future prospects in a consolidated movement of the market. When it slipped to $2,400 this week, its price was back to where it was in February. By comparison, Bitcoin has been doing a little better this year.

So will Ether’s price continue to thrash and flail, or does it have an advantage over competitors like BNB, Solana, XRP, Tron, and Cardano in the near to medium term?

4 Ethereum Price Advantages In 2024

Here are four advantages Ethereum has going forward:

1. Another Wrapped Bitcoin On Ethereum

Natively put your idle BTC to work on Ethereum.

21BTC on Ethereum gives you:
• BTC that’s native to Ethereum
• No Lock-And-Mint technology
• 100% Backed by BTC
• Institutional-grade security
• Deep liquidity
• Operational excellence

Here’s what you need to know(/5) pic.twitter.com/CGY97mqeut

— 21.co (@21co__) September 3, 2024

21co, the owner of Bitcoin ETF issuer 21 Shares, just recently introduced another Wrapped Bitcoin asset on Ethereum.

This is a reminder: Your Bitcoin is a final settlement in a brutally scarce currency on the most secure Web3 layer blockchain —and Ethereum represents so many things you can do with it without just handing it over to the establishment it’s disrupting.

While Bitcoin is in a long-term holding phase because of its network effects and the growth prospects of each Satoshi’s value due to its ultimately addressable global market, when the dam breaks and the pent-up demand spills, Ethereum is certainly one place where holders will be spending it.

From finance, to insurance, to contracts, to CRMs, to supply chain management, to gaming, and online database solutions, the leading smart contract networks like Ethereum have a very big future ahead.

2. Institutional Adoption Marches On

Wall Street has so far laid only finicky hands on the Ethereum ETFs, with outflows creating resistance for Ether’s price. But the overall institutional stance toward the asset is still second only to Bitcoin, even as corporate project managers and institutional hedge funds flirt with Ethereum’s competitors like Solana and Cardano.

However, Ethereum and ERC20 Layer-2 protocol Polygon (MATIC) power most of the institutional products currently available on Web3. A recent X post from Adriano Feria, a popular ETH booster on social media, outlined the march of corporate projects using Ethereum.

“Hate to break it to the #Ethereum doubters, but $ETH is well on its way to securing solid institutional adoption, led by industry giants like Coinbase, Circle, BlackRock, and more recently, Sony,” Feria wrote.

With Sony’s announcement on August 22 that it’s launching its own Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain, Soneium, there could be some more market alpha in ETH’s future.

3. Ethereum Price Chart Technicals

ETH just had its worst month in two years, falling by 22% in August. Therefore, mean reversion theory dictates that its price will tend to move back toward its average trend over time, giving it support for a rally. Put in shoppers’ terms, Ether was on sale in August.

ETH may be undervalued based on expert predictions from some of the most active funds, publications, and banks in the Web3 space, in a recent study by CoinGecko:

What is Ethereum’s price prediction for 2024?

Our latest study reveals that top analysts, outlets, and fund managers predict #Ethereum will average $6,404 by the end of 2024.

Read the full study: https://t.co/FzuIYpuE9D pic.twitter.com/Lj5TXYtqkF

— CoinGecko (@coingecko) August 16, 2024

4. Dovish Fed Regime Pivot

The fact that new coins are produced means the money supply increases by a planned amount, but this does not necessarily result in inflation.

If the supply of money increases at the same rate that the number of people using it increases, prices remain stable.

— Satoshi Nakamoto Quotes (@QuotesNakamoto) July 5, 2024

The Federal Reserve chair announcing in August a pivot to lower interest rates is likely to galvanize crypto markets. As dollar supplies increase, there’s extra liquidity to pump financial markets like stocks and cryptocurrency.

There’s also a baked-in ethos among crypto investors to hedge dollar inflation using cryptocurrencies, especially those that strictly limit new supplies.

Ethereum is especially well-suited as one of these alternative sound money currencies. After the Merge transitioned it from a mined to staked cryptocurrency in Sept. 2022, it also introduced a burn feature that removes a small amount of Ether when transactions are made.

That helps limit supplies and so that ETH tokens hold their purchasing power parity against other currencies like Bitcoin and the US dollar.

3 Price Hurdles for Ethereum in September:

1. September Doldrums a Headwind

September is historically a slumpy month for financial markets. In stocks, it is the only calendar month to return an average negative ROI over the past 98 years. It has typically been choppy and slow for crypto assets as well, with seasonally high volatility and lower prices.

That means it can make a great entry point for crypto investors to buy assets at good value. It’s also not usually the time of year to sell to maximize earnings or minimize losses.

2. US Election Uncertainty

Markets are also fretting over the outcome of the U.S. election in November. A Harris win could lead to rising prices, higher taxes, and more expensive regulations.

A Trump win could lead to another multi-trillion dollar trade war with half the rest of the world, which was expensive for Wall Street the last time around.

3. Bitcoin’s Price Gravity Well

Ethereum’s valuation is closely related to the spot price of BTC. Over the course of the four-year cycle around Bitcoin’s supply halvings, there tends to be a mild bear market around this time after the event, leading up to multi-month rally to new record highs. That’s going to have an impact on altcoin prices.