I haven't heard about waves this year, seems that it was just passing at my busy days. However looking into that statement that it could replace ethereum, there's no possibility for now. I couldn't see a good reason for waves to replace eth, because it has no strong community as compared to ethereum. Few projects were silently associated with waves, and I think it wasn't growing or not gaining fast market demand.
maybe you could have a look to some waves properties:
-much higher scalability
-instant transactions (with lo cost)
-new dissemination of waves tech to public and private entities
-turing incomplete dApps less risky than turing complete (DAO experience), anyway waves support both categories.
If you still confront some months ago ethereum with other protocols (who remember cryptokitties era...?) was more problematic, easy to load by some contract spamming gas burners... now it`s really fast and low-cost.