Ether Gains 2.5%, Outperforming BTC and Maybe Primed for More Upside

The second-largest crypto has been locked in a sizable downtrend relative to bitcoin.

Ether price showed signs of relative strength on Monday, notching gains of 2.5% against a very modest decline in the price of bitcoin.

The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has been lagging behind BTC in recent months, with skeptics claiming that the emergence of layer-2 networks have seen Ethereum fall out of favor among decentralized finance (DeFi) traders.

However, data from DeFi Llama showed that Ethereum still commands over 55% of the total value locked (TVL) across all DeFi networks and protocols, with the figure standing at over $50 billion. This suggests that ether is set to benefit from any capital flows into altcoins.

Moreover, ether short bets worth $17 million were liquidated across derivatives exchanges on Monday, which may have contributed to ETH’s price gains.

Prior to Monday, ether had been down over 10% over the past six months against a 22% advance for bitcoin, bringing the ETH/BTC ratio to its weakest since April 2021.

Bitcoin price itself has been trading within the same range since early August, with the current level of $71,100 having caused two firm rejections on Sep. 27 and Oct. 21. During that period, BTC has risen from below $60,000, yesterday testing its record high from March of just shy of $73,800. Ether is still around $2,000 below its record high set in November 2021.

Among other price highlights, bitcoin cash (BCH) rose 3.5% over the past 24 hours to trade above $800 once more. The gains come after BCH dropped to seven-month lows of around $700 last week.