Bitcoin is now worth $1 trillion more than Ethereum

bitcoin has assumed its biggest price lead in recent history over the altcoin ecosystem, leaving ethereum, its perennial No. 2, in the dust.

The market capitalization of the OG cryptocurrency is now more than $1 trillion higher than that of its second position, which has reached its lowest price against its predecessor since the beginning of 2021.

bitcoin's Trillion Dollar Leadership

According to CoinGecko, bitcoin was trading for $68,180 on Thursday, with a market capitalization of $1.34 trillion. ethereum, on the other hand, was trading at $2,530, with a market capitalization 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 went up, ethereum went up more.

That's not the case this time. Since ethereum's highly anticipated Merge upgrade in September 2022, the leading smart contract platform has lost over 50% of its value against btc, even though the entire cryptocurrency market has since recovered in dollar terms. .

Over the past two years, several of the most bullish catalysts for cryptocurrencies have focused on bitcoin. In March 2023, bitcoin's reputation as “digital gold” encouraged investors to flood into it when several US banks collapsed. bitcoin later rallied for several months due to enthusiasm over bitcoin spot ETF approvals, and again in 2024 following the monumental success of the ETF.

During this time, bitcoin's dominance has regained multi-year highs, and the asset is now worth 59% of the entire crypto market, according to btc.D/” data-wpel-link=”external” target=”_blank”>TradingView.

ethereum's mediocre performance

Unlike bitcoin ETFs, which have absorbed more than $20 billion in net flows since their launch, ethereum spot ETFs that launched in July have still seen negative net flows since then, 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.

However, online ethereum bulls remain defiant in the face of poor performance. ethereum educator Anthony Sassal argued on Wednesday that ethereum L2s are dismantling any existing FUD around ethereum being a slow and expensive network, and that the network's current bears are mere “bandwagon followers.”

“The only thing eth is missing right now is trust, but that can change overnight,” Bankless podcast host Ryan Sean Adams added on Wednesday.

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