The ether-to-bitcoin price ratio on major centralized exchanges has dropped to its lowest level since March 2021, as Bitcoin continues to reach new all-time highs.
The ETH-to-BTC ratio on Binance fell by 1.54% in the 24 hours leading up to Thursday afternoon in Asia, currently standing at 0.032, or 3.2%, according to data from TradingView. Since the start of 2024, this metric has declined by over 40%.
This decline, which has accelerated since July, can be attributed to Bitcoin’s meteoric rise leading up to and following the re-election of pro-crypto Republican candidate Donald Trump. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been setting new all-time high records in recent weeks.
Today, Bitcoin climbed above $97,700 for the first time, amid growing market anticipation for the price of the world’s largest crypto to surpass $100,000 by year-end.
Prior to the election, the approval of U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds has also contributed to Bitcoin’s rally throughout 2024, according to BTCMarkets’ Rachael Lucas. “This has attracted significant institutional and retail attention, reinforcing Bitcoin’s position as ‘digital gold,’” Lucas said.
On the other hand, Ether has been comparatively underperforming despite the market-wide rally brought on by Trump’s victory. While Bitcoin rose over 7% in the past week, Ether lost 3.2%.
“Ethereum is currently in an awkward area where it’s competing on two major fronts: as a store of value against Bitcoin and as a smart contract platform for developers against Solana,” said Steven Zheng, research analyst at The Block. “This has led to investors being unsure about its value proposition, at least in the short term.”
Solana has risen prominently this year as the network behind the prolonged memecoin fever. On Monday, over 94% of new tokens that appeared on decentralized exchanges were launched on Solana, according to The Block’s data dashboard. Solana has also surpassed Ethereum in key metrics such as protocol fees and DEX volumes.
