Personally, I think that ETH is one of the major backbones of the entire cryptocurrency industry, without ETH and BTC, the entire industry would simply collapse as they are the pillars holding everything up. Both BTC and ETH are still holding extremely strong despite them having lost a lot of value lately. I think it's just a matter of time until we see them both doing strong again.
You are right about ETH being one the pillars for the crypto industry.
Personally I think whales are manipulating its price since it is also going to be a part of the Futures much like Bitcoin last year. They want people to part with their ETH so they can accumulate more for themselves in the run up to the contract.