The long-term vision for Ethereum is increasingly shifting beyond incremental upgrades toward a more fundamental transformation of its core architecture. As the network continues to scale and support a growing ecosystem of decentralized applications, developers and researchers are exploring whether achieving ETH’s ultimate goals of global scalability, security, and decentralization requires rebuilding elements of its base layer rather than simply refining existing systems.

Rebuilding Core Infrastructure For Long-Term Growth

Ethereum’s evolution has moved beyond incremental upgrades; it is entering a phase of structural reconstruction. The head of research at EigenCloud, Soubhik Deb, mentioned on X that the initiative often referred to as Lean Consensus, formerly known as née Beamchain, signals the beginning of ETH’s endgame.

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It is reducing accumulated technical debt, pushing toward fast finality, and designing the protocol with post-quantum future resilience in mind. At the heart of this transformation is Lean Consensus, being one of the most ambitious protocol workstreams for the network and the crypto infrastructure overall.

In Soubhik Deb’s discussions with Drakefjustin, the focus was to understand what Lean ETH practically is in terms of real-time proving and increased Layer 1 throughput, and what it unlocks for the rollups. Other protocols are being introduced to bolster the network’s ecosystem, including scaling. 

Analyst Ladislaus offered insight into the relationship between FOCIL and Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, particularly in the medium-term via L1 zkEVMs. Presently, it seems clear that the ETH community is demanding higher L1 throughput to meet global demand. However, the truth about trade-offs today is that censorship resistance and fast inclusion rely heavily on validator altruism, more concretely, on the willingness of validators choosing to build blocks locally and thereby forego more valuable blocks from third-party builders.

At the current scale, the tax on altruism is still acceptable and manageable, but reliance is brittle and suboptimal. What makes it even more problematic is that as throughput increases, it becomes progressively more expensive. The good news is that FOCIL will make inclusion a protocol-level guarantee. Instead of treating censorship resistance as a market probability, it becomes an enforced rule of the system.

Related Reading: Ethereum Price Builds Tension Below Resistance, Breakout Risk Rising

However, with the decision to schedule FOCIL for protocol inclusion, the project is well-positioned to reduce critical social-layer dependency. At the same time, paving the way for a massive increase in L1 throughput.

Ethereum Liquidation Clusters Build On Both Sides Of Price

Ethereum’s current liquidation heatmap reflects a market stretched on both sides. According to Ted, ETH longs and shorts are aggressive, which means all this aggressiveness will be taken out. 

If geopolitical tensions such as a potential US–Iran escalation intensify, downside pressure could spark long liquidations, followed by a reversal that squeezes shorts. However, positive developments like peace talks could ignite an upside breakout, wiping out shorts before the price potentially retraces to target late longs.

Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart from Tradingview.com

It may not have joined its larger peers, like Bitcoin (CCC:BTC-USD) and Ethereum (CCC:ETH-USD), in rallying last month. Yet that hasn’t stopped Cardano (CCC:ADA-USD) from pulling back, following the recent crypto run-up. Right now, it’s trading for around $1.77 per token. That is about 20% below what it traded for last week. Worse yet, its a substantial decline from the $3 per token it traded for following the Alonzo Hard Fork upgrades in September.

It makes sense why Cardano’s selling off now. But why didn’t it rally in October and early November?

Chalk a lot of it up to rising competition from the other top “Ethereum killer,” candidate, Solana (CCC:SOL-USD). As I recently wrote, SOL-USD is starting to look more like the crypto that will give ETH a run for its money.

So, between its underwhelming performance, and with Solana now the new altcoin rising star, should you stay away? Not so fast.

Yes, for now, it may not be much of a great trading opportunity. It could stay stuck at current prices, or drift even lower, in the short-term.

However, when it comes to its long-term potential. Cardano still remains a viable play. In time, as more DeFi (decentralized finance) and dApp (decentralized app) developers flock to it, it will become more widely used. In turn, this will enable it to see a further, albeit gradual, rise in price. This doesn’t have to be the only crypto in your portfolio. Just don’t consider it one that you should pass up on.

The Near-Term May Stay Underwhelming for Cardano

ADA-USD’s long-term prospects remain bright.

Unfortunately, its middling performance recently could continue for some time. Even the post-Alonzo profit taking, which played a major role in its drop in early September, has likely wrapped up.

Why?

Mostly, because it’s going to take a while before Cardano has another bout of “game changing” news. Granted, there have been some developments of note over the past month. For example, as InvestorPlace’s Brenden Rearick reported Oct. 28, news of this token’s developer forming a partnership with the Government of Burundi. Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, has been traveling across Africa, looking to promote usage of it across the continent.

However, it’s going to take something more major, like the Hydra upgrades, to compel traders to dive back into ADA-USD. Once implemented, Hydra could help this crypto’s blockchain catch up to Solana in terms of scalability and speed capabilities.

Nevertheless, while the crowd stays on the fence, this may be your opportunity to enter or add to a position in this token. As the “pupcoin bubble” deflates, flash-in-the-pan plays like Shiba Inu (CCC:SHIB-USD) have started to collapse. However, in the case of this high-utility crypto, competition from Solana, not to mention the current “DeFi king” Ethereum, may run high. Even so, just remaining one of the most widely-used cryptos could enable it to see further price gains.

ADA-USD Still Stands to Rise in Price Over Time

The situation with Cardano hasn’t changed much in recent weeks. But neither has the long-term bull case. Just like I mentioned above, and in prior coverage of it, the long-term bull case is as follows.

Thanks to the Alonzo upgrades, this crypto has made a big leap toward bridging the utility gap between it and Ethereum. All that’s left now is for it to bridge the valuation gap between it and the more widely used crypto.

As this occurs, and more developers move their dApp/DeFi applications to the Cardano blockchain, its share of the blockchain finance market will climb. In turn, as it becomes as widely used, it should see its market capitalization (which stands at around $59 billion today) get closer to that of ETH-USD, which today has a market capitalization of $498.7 billion.

The best part?

As the gap between the two high-utility cryptos is so wide, even a partial catching up on Cardano’s part would result in a tremendous jump in price compared to where it stands today. I wouldn’t count on it happening as quickly as Cardano’s last triple-digit percentage move. But don’t think that, after its more than 10x increase in price so far in 2021, it has topped out quite yet.

The Bottom Line on Cardano

If you’re looking for a short-term crypto trade, for now you may want to stick to the names making headlines right now. As of this writing, Decentraland (CCC:MANA-USD) and “metaverse” themed cryptos are replacing “pupcoins” like Shiba in terms of what’s hot. But if you’re looking for a crypto you can approach as a long-term investment then ADA-USD remains such an opportunity.

Buying Cardano now, after it’s fallen back below $2 per token, could be a winning move in hindsight. In the coming years, as its usage increases, it stands to see a gradual, yet substantial, increase in price.

On the date of publication, Thomas Niel held long positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. He did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in any other securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Thomas Niel, contributor for InvestorPlace.com, has been writing single-stock analysis for web-based publications since 2016.