Ethereum is one of the worst-performing assets in the cryptocurrency market in terms of yield dynamics recently.
According to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, betting on the decline of ETH remains the best strategy in 2025. To implement this, two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can be used, which short the digital asset with leverage to increase potential earnings.
Why Ethereum is becoming cheaper
Two ETFs offering an alternative to shorting Ethereum with a 2x leverage have taken the first and second places in the ranking of the most profitable funds of the year according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Balchunas reported this on his Twitter page.
Here is a relevant quote from Cointelegraph:
"The best ETFs this year are two exchange-traded funds, ETHD and ETQ. Their returns since the beginning of the year have been 247.3% and 219.19%, respectively."
According to Balchunas, investors who still believe in Ethereum's growth are facing "tough" consequences of their bet on the altcoin's price increase. It has decreased by 52% since the beginning of 2025 and by 35% over the past six months. Consequently, buying ETH over the past year has not been the most profitable idea.
Both ETFs use financial derivatives to track the inverse dynamics of Ethereum's price with double volatility relative to the base asset. However, such exchange-traded funds do not always accurately replicate the behavior of the asset they are based on.
Despite this, Ethereum remains the most popular blockchain network with a total locked value (TVL) of $46 billion. However, the long-term yield of ETH began to decline as early as March 2024. At that time, the Dencun update was activated in the altcoin network to reduce user costs, but it reduced validator revenue from transaction fees by about 95%.
Validator network revenues have remained low primarily due to difficulties in monetizing second-level (L2) solutions, which process an increasing share of transactions in the Eth ecosystem.
For example, over the last week of March, the network earned only 3.18 ETH in transaction fees from its L2 blockchains Arbitrum and Base, according to analysts.
To restore commission revenues to pre-Dencun levels, transaction volumes on L2 blockchains would need to increase by more than 22,000 times. This was stated by Michael Nadeau, founder of The DeFi Report.
Smart contract platforms, including Ethereum and Solana, have shown a general decline in activity in the first quarter of 2025. The decline in indicators reflects the cooling of investor sentiment following the introduction of massive tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump.
How Bitcoin is used in life
Meanwhile, the fundamental adoption of Bitcoin makes digital assets a useful tool in the real world. For example, the Lomond school in Scotland will start accepting Bitcoin payments for tuition from the fall semester of 2025. It became the first school in the UK to implement this practice.
The adoption of cryptocurrency is part of the school's plan to integrate the principles of "healthy money" from the Austrian School of Economics into its curriculum. This way, students are prepared for an uncertain future, according to the institution's representatives.
Bitcoin is accessible to anyone willing to learn, making it more democratic and inclusive, especially for people in developing countries without access to traditional banking services. Lomond considers Bitcoin an excellent real-life example for studying economics, computer science, ethics, and innovation.
The school does not plan to accept other cryptocurrencies and will immediately convert BTC into regular currency. However, in the future, it may create its own cryptocurrency reserve, the prospects of which will depend on the results of the experiment.
According to sources, Bitcoin has already become part of the curriculum in several schools and universities. Some of them have also implemented a strategy for forming national cryptocurrency reserves to protect assets from inflation's impact on purchasing power. For example, in 2022, the University of Cincinnati added cryptocurrency courses to its curriculum to teach students how to interact with Bitcoin and emerging Web3 technologies.
Bitcoin was also integrated into El Salvador's school education system as part of the Mi Primer Bitcoin program in 2023. Recall that the country's government made BTC a legal payment method in September 2021.
In July 2024, the University of Wyoming launched the Bitcoin Research Institute to conduct peer-reviewed research on cryptocurrency. In February 2025, the University of Austin announced that its endowment fund allocated $5 million to invest in BTC. The fund manages assets worth around $200 million.
The bottom line
Despite Ethereum's decline and the growing popularity of ETFs for shorting the digital asset, interest in the real-world application of cryptocurrencies continues to grow. This is confirmed by initiatives from educational institutions betting on Bitcoin as a tool for the future. Therefore, the development of the cryptocurrency sector will clearly continue.
