Ethereum Falls Below $4,000 as Schiff, Kang Dismiss Crypto Bullishness

- Ethereum trades below $4,000; total crypto market capitalization plunges 6.6% - Peter Schiff warns of Bitcoin bear market; Andrew Kang likens Ethereum to "Luna 2.0" A significant slump in the cryptocurrency market has prompted skeptics, including longtime gold advocate Peter Schiff and Mechanism Capital co-founder Andrew Kang, to scrutinize Bitcoin and Ethereum. The downturn pushed Ethereum’s price below $4,000 as the total crypto market capitalization decreased by over 6.6%, providing a backdrop for intensified arguments against the leading cryptocurrencies. On September 26, 2025, Cryptopolitan reported that Peter Schiff highlighted Bitcoin's underperformance against gold by approximately 20% during the market decline, presenting this as evidence of an impending bear market for companies reliant on Bitcoin treasuries. Schiff also underscored the 45% drop in the stock price of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), a company holding substantial Bitcoin reserves, warning this demonstrates the vulnerabilities among firms tied to the cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, Andrew Kang took aim at Ethereum, challenging a bullish $12,000-$15,000 price prediction from Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat, which hinged on growing institutional adoption and supportive policies. Kang dismissed Lee's thesis as "financially illiterate," pointing to key issues in Ethereum’s ecosystem. He argued that while stablecoin volumes and tokenized assets have grown significantly since 2020, Ethereum’s network fee revenue has not increased proportionally, a trend he attributes to efficient network upgrades and user migration to competing blockchains like Solana and Arbitrum. Kang also expressed skepticism about institutional adoption for staking, noting the absence of major bank involvement, and likened Ethereum to "Luna 2.0" in a comparison to the collapsed Terra blockchain. Furthermore, Kang revealed he has taken put options against Ethereum, signaling his bearish outlook. According to CoinMarketCap, Ethereum (ETH) was trading at $3,982.41 as of 17:09 UTC on September 26, with its 24-hour trading volume up 1.56%. Around the same time, Bitcoin (BTC) stood at $109,488.15, down 1.19% over the same period.