Contrarian investments aren’t for everyone, but when they pay off, the upside tends to be significant. On that note, the price of Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) is trading around $2,500 and remains 47% below its August 2025 all-time high. To say that the coin is a smart investment in a room full of crypto natives would likely elicit an audible groan, as myriad investors have arrived at the very same conclusion, only to buy it and promptly underperform the returns of an index fund for years on end, like over the last five years.

Even before the crypto bear market’s bottom in late June of this year, when some of Ethereum’s longest-holding evangelists finally capitulated and sold their holdings, the coin’s reputation was for…