eth had its worst year since 2018, and it wasn’t one big crash

2025 was rough for ethereum in a way that’s almost quiet. it wasn’t a single blow-up and then a clean recovery. it was just red month after red month. eth ended the year negative in 9 out of 12 months, the ugliest stretch since 2018.

the shape matters. eth fell february through april, then again september through december. february was the worst (down about 32%). other heavy months were november (about 22%) and march (about 18.7%). the green months didn’t erase it: july jumped (about 48.8%) and august added (about 18.8%), but overall it still leaned down.

so what’s the actual reason it looked so bad? my read is timing plus narrative. ethereum kept building, but traders care about what drives demand right now. a lot of usage moved to layer 2 networks. that’s great for users because fees got cheap, but it also means mainnet fees are way lower than the “peak mania” days. less fee pressure, less burn story, less urgency to buy.

and you end up with this weird combo: dev activity is strong, transactions hit records, fees are low… but price keeps stalling around the same big levels because buyers are hesitant and sellers keep showing up.