Ethereum's Performance Against Bitcoin: A Decade of Challenges

According to Cointelegraph, Ethereum has struggled to outperform Bitcoin since its inception nearly a decade ago. Analysts reveal that Ether (ETH) has only surpassed Bitcoin (BTC) in performance for 15% of all trading days since it began trading in mid-2015. Analyst James Check highlighted this trend in an April 8 post on X, noting that Ether significantly outperformed Bitcoin during its early years from mid-2015 to mid-2017. There were also brief periods in late 2019 and early 2020 when the ETH to BTC ratio favored Ether. However, over the past five years, Bitcoin has consistently outperformed Ether. The ETH/BTC ratio, which measures Ether's price in terms of Bitcoin, reached a five-year low of 0.018 on April 9, as reported by TradingView. The last time the ratio fell below this level was in December 2019, when ETH dropped to $125 while Bitcoin was trading at approximately $7,000. Recently, Ether has erased seven years of gains, plunging an additional 10% over the past 24 hours to below $1,450, which is beneath its 2018 market cycle peak. On April 9, ETH fell to $1,400 in early trading, according to CoinGecko. In comparison, Bitcoin experienced a 6% decline, falling to $75,000, which remains 275% higher than its peak during the bull market seven years ago. Concerns have been raised by Ethereum supporters regarding the network's growth, as the token struggled to gain momentum earlier this year despite Bitcoin reaching a new price peak. Web3 researcher Stacy Muur expressed these concerns in an April 8 post on X, stating, "I love Ethereum. However, it’s time to face reality: Ethereum has had [around] the same number of active addresses for the past 4 years." Nonetheless, other researchers have pointed out that most new addresses are on Ethereum layer-2 scaling networks, which have seen a significant increase in value locked onchain over the past couple of years, according to L2beat. While many long-term ETH investors are currently holding at a loss, technical indicators such as fractal patterns observed in 2018 and 2022 suggest that the asset may be nearing oversold levels, with a potential bottom around the $1,000 mark, according to Cointelegraph analysis. This analysis indicates that Ethereum could be approaching a turning point, despite the challenges it has faced in outperforming Bitcoin over the years.