I was not buying ethereum before and last year I see bitcoin as the only good Cryptocoins to hold. Around April when ethereum fall below $800 I see it as an opportunity to buy and since I bought it has refused to recover above that level. Did you think ethereum will recover this year again.
ETH price is tied to the whole market, few coins will rise in price without a market recovery. I do think that irrespective of a recovery or not ETH will outperform most small alts but will be outperformed by some of the bigger alts, for example EOS, IOTA, ADA, XLM. When I say bigger alts I mean in the overall market and not bigger than ETH.