This market has really become incomprehensible lately. Take those coins that once crashed—LUNC, LUNA, USTC—they’ve been pumping like crazy recently. Meanwhile, Ethereum, which just completed the Fusaka upgrade, has shown barely any price movement. What’s going on with the market?

If you think about it calmly, this actually proves the market is never stupid. It’s just trading on two completely different playbooks.

Let’s first talk about why those “meme coins” can explode. The core reason is one word—gambling. The final verdict for Terra’s founder Do Kwon is coming up on December 11, and this kind of unresolved drama easily attracts speculators. Plus, the community has been frantically burning tokens—over 959 million LUNC were burned just in December—creating an illusion of a “deflationary miracle.” To put it simply, this surge isn’t about value; it’s about sentiment and memory—the people who got rekt back then are now FOMOing in, hoping for a comeback.

Ethereum? That’s a completely different story. The Fusaka upgrade is actually pretty important, aiming to improve network efficiency and lower L2 costs, but this kind of infrastructure benefit can’t be reflected in the price immediately. It takes time for the ecosystem to gradually flourish, so developers and users can actually feel the advantages. What’s more awkward is that there’s even an argument that the better L2s become, the more the mainnet’s value capture could be diluted—like a paradox: the stronger the ecosystem, the more awkward it can get for the main token.

And to be honest, ETH is lacking a trigger that can instantly ignite market enthusiasm right now. Unlike last year’s ETF approval, which brought a flood of outside capital pouring in.

So, do you get it now? Meme coins are playing a game of thrill and chips, driven by short-term events—fireworks shows. Ethereum is betting on long-term fundamentals and ecosystem narrative—a slow engine that requires patience and companionship. Do you want to chase that momentary excitement, or are you willing to wait for real value realization? That’s a question everyone has to answer for themselves.