Indeed ethereum is the real king of altcoin. Ethereum is currently experiencing a significant increase lately but there has also been a decline. I believe ethereum will increase to $ 300 earlier this year. There is no match for ethereum other than bitcoin.
As platform for alts creation ETH is great. As I know Waves have the same simple mechanics. And some other platforms. But ETH became great as first ICO platform. This is main - in time and in place. Not because of super techology