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They say crypto rapidly ages you. Look no further for proof than the ETH chart.
More specifically, the ETH chart in comparison to Intel stock. Their trajectories share an uncanny resemblance.
The chart below plots the price of ETH in pink against Intel stock in blue but with caveats:
- INTC is set over the past 50 years (it went public in 1971) on weekly intervals.
- ETH is set over the past seven years on daily intervals.
- ETH is advanced by around two and a half years — so it starts in Jan 2018 rather than August 2015.
As you can see, ETH has done almost exactly what Intel stock has achieved, just seven times as quickly.
It’s not all bad news: Intel stock has recently tanked harder than ETH
Comparing cryptocurrencies and stocks doesn’t make a lot of sense. Ethereum is not a business in the same way that Intel is.
Ethereum is a decentralized network that sells blockspace to apps and other protocols that service users in some way — far from a chipmaker with factories, employees, board members and CEOs.
Still, I can’t help but draw similarities between Ethereum and Intel, at least in terms of narrative arcs.
ETH’s market cap is now about four times that of Intel stock
Top brain Vitalik Buterin and the non-profit Ethereum Foundation (EF) he leads are still under fire for supposedly misaligning themselves with the modern crypto community — prioritizing infrastructure over exciting new apps that properly accrue value to ETH.
That disconnect has contributed to massively increased market and mindshare for rival Solana and a ETH/BTC ratio at four-year lows.
Intel’s board meanwhile ousted its CEO Pat Gelsinger in December over concerns that he’d failed to capitalize on the AI boom and could no longer stage a comeback against Nvidia.
Intel had long been the most valuable US chipmaker until Nvidia flipped its stock in mid-2020. Many tip SOL to potentially flip ETH somewhere down the line.
If the eerie correlation with Intel stock persists (and that’s a big if), perhaps it could happen sooner rather than later.
