Ever since Ethereum was created in 2015, the whole crypto/Blockchain space improved in many ways that were never imagined. The ICO trend of 2017, and the current "De-Fi"/NFTs hype are all attributed to Ethereum's ever-rising popularity in the mainstream world. If it wasn't because of Ethereum, we wouldn't had a plethora of smart contract platforms to choose from. The crypto/Blockchain space would've been focused solely on finance, instead of serving as a hub for decentralized applications.
Without Bitcoin, we would have not seen the crypto market and the blockchain industry as big as of now.
Without Ethereum, we would have not seen the big ecosystem for smart contract platforms as of now.
Ethereum contributes a lot to the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Don't let scam projects eliminate all contributions from Ethereum and Vitalik.
It's been 6 years since ETH came into inception, and now the smart contract platform is the second-largest blockchain network in the world. Some people compare ETH to BTC because of its focus on decentralization unlike any other cryptocurrency on the market today. As of this date, Ethereum has a large number of miners and nodes keeping the blockchain alive and healthy. If ETH continues to grow, it could live alongside Bitcoin for many years. But we all know that nothing lasts forever.
There are more competitors to Ethereum: Binance Smart Chain (still does not have their own blockchain), Polkadot, etc. They will contribute to the cryptocurrency ecosystem and challenge the leading position of Ethereum in altcoins. I am doubtful that they can beat Ethereum but their appearance and challenge to ETH is good.
What's your opinion on this? Will Ethereum last forever? Or will it eventually die?
It won't die but it might lose the leading position among altcoins. If Vitalik leaves the project and Ethereum community can not find any big brain to replace him. I do not think either of two will happen. Ethereum will be fine.