ETH-to-BTC price ratio drops to lowest since March 2021 as bitcoin surpasses $97,700

The ether-to-bitcoin price ratio on major centralized exchanges has declined to its lowest level since March 2021, as bitcoin continues to reach new all-time highs.

ETH-to-BTC ratio on Binance dropped 1.54% in the 24 hours leading up to Asia afternoon on Thursday, currently standing at 0.032, or 3.2%, according to data from TradingView. Since the start of 2024, the metric has fallen by over 40%.

The decline, which has accelerated since July, may 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 the past few 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, BTCMarkets' Rachael Lucas told The Block. “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 of 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.

Lucas added that Ethereum has struggled to maintain momentum since its Merge update in 2022 as it faced regulatory uncertainty surrounding its potential classification as a financial security in the U.S.

Zheng, however, said that the Ethereum blockchain remains the most economically-active smart contract platform by far, which still attracts developers who may build new apps to help the network regain momentum. 

“Overall, Ethereum's underperformance signals a broader trend of centralization in bitcoin,” Lucas said. “If bitcoin's rally loses steam or Ethereum's market sentiment improves, perhaps due to technical upgrades or renewed interest in its use cases, there is potential for a rebound in the [ratio].”

Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Research, said that the ETH's underperformance thus far doesn't necessarily mean it will continue to do so in the coming years. “As a more crypto-friendly environment takes hold under the Trump administration, more Web3 projects will likely be launched on various chains,” Chung said.

“It's still very early days in the blockchain industry, so it would be premature to rule out one chain over another, especially given the track record the Ethereum community has demonstrated over the years and the intellectual capital residing within the community,” Chung added.