Veteran commodity and forex trader Peter Brandt recently revealed a super bearish outlook on Ethereum (ETH). To drive a point, he even shorted the hell out of the cryptocurrency he referred to as a “piece of junk” to $650.
Previously, Reaper Financial Founder and CEO Patrick Riley tore through Ethereum, telling people that it’s a “dying horse that’s been limping along for a long time.” He believes XRP will stand to benefit from its eventual downfall.
Peter Brandt happened to echo the sentiment in a short post to his 707.7K followers on the X platform. The veteran investor started the scathing remark by telling people that ETH is not comparable to Bitcoin (BTC) as a store of value. Then, he said the functionality and gas price of Ethereum makes it “a piece of junk.”
Adding insult to injury, Brandt capped off his statement with his prediction that ETH will no longer be a listed asset after a decade.
Last Friday, the investor went on to short ETH looking at the targets of $1,000 to $650.
Ethereum Today
In light of these negative comments, Ethereum is moving in tandem with Bitcoin on the upside as of 5:30 AM UTC. It gained 3.5% in the 24-hour frame to $2,242 while trading volume soared to 29.42% as $10.45 billion worth of ETH moved in crypto exchanges. During this period, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap pivoted between a low of $2,120 and $2,249.
Ethereum is 0.78% up in the weekly charts but has shown double-digit gains in the monthly and annual charts at 14.33% and 89.88%, respectively. It’s still 54% down from its all-time high at 4,891 in November 2021 but optimism runs that it might narrow the gap next year.
Strengths of Ethereum
The primary strength of the Ethereum blockchain lies in the solid support of the crypto community to its ecosystem. The platform is preferred by developers because of its flexibility in smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps).
The continuous push to improve its economy is also another selling point of Ethereum. A notable development was its shift from proof-of-work (PoW) to the less energy-intensive proof-of-stake (PoS) in 2022. Its co-founder Vitalik Buterin is currently working on a redesign for the network to enhance its performance and staking features, too.
Lastly, due to its strong correlation with Bitcoin, Ethereum is expected to rally with it by next year upon the fulfillment of two major events that are expected to launch BTC prices to the roof, namely the approval of pending spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETF) in the US and the halving.