Ether (ETH) fell to its lowest level against bitcoin (BTC) since March 2021 on Sunday as the world’s second-largest token extended losses against its bigger rival.
One ether fell to 0.03 BTC on Sunday, nearly 50% lower than a year ago, as bitcoin soared in the run-up to incoming US President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The exchange rate of the two tokens, conventionally called a ratio, peaked above 0.08 in 2022.
ETH’s value proposition has been in decline ever since. Bitcoin hit an all-time high above $109,000 earlier Monday and has returned 160% to investors over the past year. Ether, meanwhile, is only up 40% and hovers around 30% below its peak in 2021. Ether tends to rally as traders see an advantage to the Ethereum blockchain, the first to offer smart contracts and decentralized finance applications (DeFi ). It weakens when they prefer Bitcoin or other blockchains.
“Ethereum has notably underperformed this cycle, especially as Solana gains traction through the memecoin frenzy and events like Trump’s official memecoin launch on Solana instead of Ethereum,” Min Jung, an investment analyst at Presto Research, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message .
“That said, World Liberty Financial’s recent accumulation of $ETH highlights that Ethereum continues to maintain strong appeal among institutions. As the only cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin with an ETF, Ethereum is well positioned to be the next focal point after Bitcoin ,” added Jung. A crypto-lending platform promoted by Trump and his sons, Bitcoin is not only making new highs against its No. 1 competitor. It has also done so against competing investments in traditional assets. Bitcoin now costs 40 oz of gold, or in equivalent terms, the bitcoin to gold market value is now as high as 11.4%.
