The ETH/BTC ratio has decreased by 1.54% in the past 24 hours and is currently trading at 0.032. Since the beginning of 2024, this index has dropped by more than 40%.
This decline began to accelerate from July, attributed to Bitcoin's remarkable breakout before and after Donald Trump's re-election as President of the United States. The world's largest cryptocurrency has continuously set record high prices in recent weeks.
Today, Bitcoin has surpassed the $97,000 mark for the first time, amidst market expectations that the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency will exceed $100,000 before the end of the year.
Before the election, the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States also fueled Bitcoin's rise throughout 2024. Rachael Lucas from BTCMarkets shared that: "This has attracted significant interest from institutions and retail investors, reinforcing Bitcoin's position as digital gold."
In contrast, Ether has performed worse even though the cryptocurrency market as a whole benefited from Trump's victory. While Bitcoin increased by more than 7% in the past week, Ether decreased by 3.2%.
"Ethereum is currently in a tough position competing on two main fronts: as a store of value asset against Bitcoin and as a smart contract platform competing with Solana," analyst Steven Zheng remarked. "This leaves investors uncertain about its value, at least in the short term."
Solana has surged this year, becoming the network behind the prolonged memecoin frenzy. On Monday, over 94% of new tokens appearing on decentralized exchanges were launched on Solana. Solana has also surpassed Ethereum in key metrics such as protocol fees and trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEX).
Lucas added that Ethereum has struggled to maintain momentum since the The Merge upgrade in 2022, facing legal uncertainties regarding its potential classification as a security in the United States.
However, Zheng noted that the Ethereum blockchain remains the most robust economic platform for smart contracts currently, continuing to attract developers to create new applications.
"Overall, Ethereum's underperformance reflects a broader trend of concentration towards Bitcoin," Lucas commented. "If Bitcoin's upward momentum stalls or market sentiment towards Ethereum improves due to technical upgrades or renewed interest in its applications, the ETH/BTC price ratio could recover."
Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Research, believes that Ethereum's underperformance to this point does not necessarily mean that this trend will continue in the coming years. "As a more cryptocurrency-friendly environment is established under the Trump administration, many Web3 projects are likely to launch on various blockchains," Chung said.
"The blockchain industry is still in its early stages, so it would be too soon to dismiss one chain for another, especially considering the track record that the Ethereum community has shown over the years and the intellectual resources that exist within that community," he added.