Once gushed over and tipped to usurp Bitcoin, Ethereum now faces what at least one analyst has dubbed a “midlife crisis.”

Now, the would-be Bitcoin usurper risks ceding ground to an unlikely contender.

Once gushed over and tipped to usurp Bitcoin because of its programmability, Ethereum now faces what at least one analyst has dubbed a “midlife crisis.” Amid a lack of a definitive investment thesis, its native token, ETH, has grossly underperformed the competition.

Now, the would-be Bitcoin usurper risks ceding ground to an unlikely contender.

Tether (CRYPTO: USDT) is getting closer to flipping Ethereum in market capitalization as the stablecoin continues to grow while several key Ethereum metrics have been trending down.

One Redditor pointed out that several key Ethereum metrics have been declining while USDT adoption continues to grow.

“ETH dominance is near multi-year lows. DeFi TVL is stagnating, NFT volumes are down, and gas fees are no longer a meaningful moat. Tether, ironically, has become the most used asset across chains. If ETH can’t reclaim narrative dominance soon, a USDT flippening could signal a deeper shift in crypto capital flows-away from smart contract risk and toward dollar-denominated stability,” the Redditor wrote.

Another Redditor, in a more highly engaged post, highlighted the narrowing gap between Ethereum and Tether, describing it as “The Flippening nobody wanted to see.”

But Tether may not be the only asset in the running to flip Ethereum.

Standard Chartered (OTC:SCBPY) Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick backed XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) to eventually surpass Ethereum in a report on Tuesday.

“By the end of 2028 we see XRP’s market cap overtaking Ethereum’s. That will make XRP the second largest (non-stablecoin) Digital Asset at that time,” Kendrick wrote.

The view comes from the firm expecting XRP to benefit from an anticipated rise in the adoption of cryptocurrencies for cross-border payments and a potential tokenization push from Ripple. On the other hand, the firm has tipped Ethereum to continue to underperform the market amid perceived value extraction by Layer 2 chains.

At the time, Kendrick argued that a reversal in Ethereum’s outlook would require a shift in policy from the Ethereum Foundation.

“Only a proactive change of commercial direction from the Ethereum Foundation – such as taxing layer 2s – could achieve that now, in our view. We see this as unlikely,” he wrote.