Vitalik Buterin Proclaims an End to Explosive Growth as ETH Values Plummet: How Will Ethereum Recover?

With ETH prices hovering around the $200 mark, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced the end of the age explosive growth within the cryptocurrency industry.

Released to Bloomberg earlier this week at a Hong Kong blockchain conference, reinforce the Ethereum founder's technologist perspective on the cryptocurrency market - Buterin has previously emphasized the negative impact of rampant speculation on the blockchain ecosystem.

As consumer awareness of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency reaches a saturation point, argues the Ethereum co-founder, the possibility of capturing an opportunity for 1,000-times growth in "Anything in the space" is virtually nonexistent.

Erin's statements have exacerbated a sharp and sudden drop in Ethereum prices, with ETH breaking the $200 floor to $188 on Sunday, a low not seen since July 2017.

Investor confidence has been shaken further by concerns of a potential "ICO dump" that would see hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ETH flood the market as initial coin offerings liquidate large sums of Ethereum in an attempt to minimize losses.

Blockchain technology may promise to decentralize virtually everything and provide consumers with the tangible economic benefits that Buterin states will drive interest in the blockchain industry - but the Ethereum project is not yet at a stage of development at which it is able to support large-scale consumer interest.

With Uber boasting over 4 billion rides booked per year, any dApp aiming to compete on the Ethereum blockchain would require a transaction throughput far higher than what Ethereum currently offers.

The Ethereum 2.0 Roadmap, recently revealed by Rocketpool, features second-layer scaling solutions and a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism that is set to significantly improve Ethereum transaction throughput speed.

Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, speaking at Asian tech conference Rise on July 10, highlighted the scalability impact of the Ethereum 2.0 scaling solutions - once implemented, Ethereum's Plasma and Sharding scalability solutions will deliver hundreds of thousands of transactions.

While Ethereum may not currently be able to support widespread adoption in the way Buterin envisages it, the technological foundation upon which the future of Ethereum will be built is being developed at a rapid rate.