Bitcoin has assumed its biggest price lead in recent history over the altcoin ecosystem, leaving Ethereum – its perennial number 2 – in the dust.
The market capitalization of the OG crypto is now over $1 trillion greater than its runner-up, which has hit its lowest price point against its senior since early 2021.
Bitcoin’s Trillion Dollar Lead
According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin traded for $68,180 on Thursday, with a market cap of $1.34 trillion. Ethereum, by contrast, traded at $2530, with a market cap of $305 billion.
That leaves the ETH/BTC ratio at just 0.037, a low last seen in April 2021 following Ethereum’s meteoric rise over the previous 12 months. During the previous bull market, Ethereum followed the same general price behavior of the other major altcoins: when Bitcoin pumped, Ethereum pumped higher.
That’s not the case this time around. Since Ethereum’s highly anticipated Merge upgrade in September 2022, the top smart contract platform has lost over 50% of its value against BTC – despite the entire crypto market rallying in dollar terms since that time.
Over the last two years, several of crypto’s most bullish catalysts have been Bitcoin-centric. In March 2023, Bitcoin’s reputation as “digital gold” encouraged investors to come flooding into it as several U.S. banks collapsed. Later on, Bitcoin rallied for several months on excitement for Bitcoin spot ETF approvals, and again in 2024 following the ETF’s monumental success.
During this time, Bitcoin dominance has reclaimed multi-year highs, with the asset now worth 59% of the entire crypto market, according to TradingView.
Ethereum’s Lackluster Performance
Unlike Bitcoin ETFs, which have absorbed over $20 billion in net flows since launch, the Ethereum spot ETFs that went live in July have still seen net negative flows since that time, due to losses from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE).
According to CryptoQuant, declines in the Coinbase Premium Index, suggest that institutional investors could be reducing their exposure to ETH.
Ethereum bulls online remain defiant, in the face of underperformance, however. Ethereum educator Anthony Sassal argued Wednesday that Ethereum’s L2s are dismantling any existing FUD around Ethereum being a slow and expensive network, and the network’s current bears are mere “bandwagoners.”
“The only thing ETH lacks right now is confidence – but that can change overnight,” added Bankless podcast host Ryan Sean Adams on Wednesday.
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