In this article BTC.CM= Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Omar Marques | Lightrocket | Getty Images It's been a decade since Ethereum's inception, and although its native ether token has largely struggled for the last half of it, its future looks brighter than ever. Ether has become more attractive to institutions in recent weeks largely due to legislation around stablecoins – most of which are issued on Ethereum – being signed into the first-ever U.S. crypto law. There's also the successful June IPO of Circle , the issuer of the second-largest stablecoin, new leadership at the Ethereum foundation, and, most recently, a boom in ether treasury firms and corporate entrants. Until very recently, however, it seemed like ether, better known by its ticker ETH, was left for dead. For one, institutional investors struggled to understand its purpose. While bitcoin's primary digital gold narrative was clear and digestible, Ethereum's was more complex, having been likened to a world computer, a web3 app store, digital silver, digital oil, ultrasound money and more. Stock Chart Icon Stock chart icon Ether (ETH) last five years It's also suffered from weaker revenue following a big technical upgrade last year and has dealt with increasing competition from Solana, which aims to be the solution to Ethereum's notorious high costs and slow speeds. The ether ETFs, now about a year old, were starting to look like zombie funds. They've amassed about $9 billion in net inflows since listing, helped largely by the latest resurgence, versus bitcoin ETFS' $36 billion in their first year of trading. The April sell-off in risk assets made things even worse for the coin. The price of ETH really took off during the 2021 bull market, when it hit an all-time high near $5,000 – a rally characterized by the rise of decentralized finance, better known as DeFi, and NFTs. But it's struggled to fully come back since the 2022 crash and hasn't yet revisited those highs. This week, it's trading near $4,000 — a psychologically and technically challenging resistance level for ETH investors. "ETH today is roughly where bitcoin was in January 2019 – that's when bitcoin turned 10," said Avichal Garg, a co-founder and general partner at Electric Capital, which has long invested heavily in the Ethereum ecosystem. "It's not a surprise that after 10 years of uptime, that's just how long it takes for people to get their heads around this. I suspect the next four to five years is where ETH has its institutional arc, the same way that bitcoin did between 2019 and 2024."