Ethereum’s Lost Potential? Crypto Legend Blames One Enemy

April 30, 2025

  • Voorhees argues ICO-era tokens were valuable innovation stifled by regulation, hoping for a builder resurgence.
  • Ethereum’s late April price action shows improvement, but experts see sub-$2K as a significant buying opportunity.
  • Positive ETH price movement fuels speculation of a breakout, with experts calling it a “huge steal” below $2,000

Eric Voorhees, the founder of the DEX ShapeShift, shared his take on the ICO boom on Ethereum. He suggested that the proliferation of various tokens during the height of the Initial Coin Offering days was beneficial for society. According to the commentator, tokens are discrete, scarce, possessable digital assets, with Bitcoin and Ethereum being the ideal examples of this success.

However, he argues that the SEC’s enforcement approach, under the guise of regulating investments and protecting investors, stifled this innovation. Through their aggressive stance and initiating legal actions against major industry players, the security watchdog created an atmosphere of fear for projects trying to build real utility and offer economic incentives through their tokens, as these could be classified as securities.

SEC came along, believing its job was to tell American adults how to invest their own money, and through its process of opaque regulation by enforcement, it suffocated nearly all creative energy and entrepreneurship from continuing to iterate with this new primitive.

Due to such actions, many firms shifted abroad in search of friendlier shores, resulting in a mass brain drain. The only projects to survive this are the meme coins that have largely avoided SEC scrutiny. Meme coins, being inherently jokes without claims of real utility or economic rationality, have withstood many SEC actions. Voorhees cited the example of Solana becoming the go-to platform for meme coin growth.

In essence, Voorhees is making the case that while the ICO era had its flaws, the underlying concept of tokens as a new economic primitive was valuable. He further hopes for a resurgence of serious builders and experimentation with tokens, believing that markets will always find ways to innovate.

Ethereum
Source: CryptoVirtuos

Looking at market sentiment, Ethereum’s price action has gained traction as the setup in late April appears positive compared to February and March. Experts, however, feel Ethereum’s current price level, which is below $2,000, to be a significantly undervalued buying opportunity.

Are we about to see a breakout in Ethereum? Ethereum’s current movement is pretty good compared to what we got in February and March. This still isn’t enough. Ethereum below 2K is still a huge steal. You wont be getting this chance more often.

Read More: Ethereum (ETH) Eyes Breakout: Will $2,200 Resistance Mark the Next Bullish Surge?

 

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