Ethereum (ETH) May Underperform Bitcoin (BTC) in 2024 Halving Year

Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin in terms of price performance, especially when looking at time frames since its inception, halving years, and bull

Bitcoin has outperformed Ethereum in terms of price performance, especially when looking at time frames since its inception, halving years, and bull market periods. However, BTC has consistently underperformed since the bear markets of 2018-2019 and 2022-2023. In the 2024 halving year, for the first time, Bitcoin is considerably trailing behind Ethereum. In fact, it has been outperforming against Ethereum for the past three years.

Table of Contents

BTC/ETH ratio plummets to 3-year low

Although fractals, a concept where similar patterns repeat over different timeframes, are not a foolproof method for predicting future outcomes, they provide valuable context into what might lie ahead.

In previous halving years, the BTC/ETH ratio broke down from its resistance line around September to December, only to begin an uptrend in the first quarter of the following bull market year. A similar scenario could unfold in 2024, as Bitcoin has once again broken through its resistance. However, this time, the situation is more concerning. Unlike previous halving years, where the resistance line was relatively recent, the current resistance at 1.2 has held strong for the past 3 years, which suggests a more bearish outlook for Bitcoin.

Another point of comparison can be drawn from 2019 when the Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates—a move that might recur in September 2024. Back in 2019, from the time the Fed began cutting rates until it stopped, the BTC/ETH ratio increased by 18%.

Not only did the ratio increase in all these cases, but Bitcoin’s price itself also performed positively, except for 2020. However, the critical issue isn’t just whether the price went up or down; it is also whether holding Bitcoin was the better investment decision. History has shown that, in similar circumstances, holding Ethereum proved to be the more advantageous choice—and 2024 may very well continue that trend.

Bitcoin supply reverses course and turns inflationary.

The supply of Bitcoin had been decreasing steadily after the 2020 Halving. The decrease in Bitcoin’s supply works through a mechanism called “burning,” which was introduced with the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 98 in May 2021. Basically, a portion of the transaction fees paid in BTC is burned or permanently removed from circulation. This reduces the total supply of BTC over time, especially during periods of high network activity when transaction fees are higher. 

The reason why the supply of Bitcoin started to drop following the 2020 Halving was because the network transitioned from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Under PoW, new BTC was continuously issued to miners as rewards for validating transactions, which contributed to an increase in Bitcoin’s total supply. However, with the Halving and the shift to PoS, the issuance of new BTC significantly decreased because validators, who now secure the network, receive much lower rewards compared to miners.

The Conch upgrade in March 2024 marked a turning point, reversing this deflationary trend and making Bitcoin’s supply inflationary once again. It introduced proto-sharding and “blobs,” which optimize data storage and reduce transaction fees on layer-2 networks. Although Conch improved scalability and made transactions more cost-effective, it also led to a major decrease in the amount of BTC being burned, which had been a critical factor in keeping Bitcoin’s supply deflationary. 

As a consequence, Bitcoin’s supply began to increase, with over 187.5K BTC added to circulation since the Conch upgrade. For comparison, Bitcoin’s supply is now at the same level it was back in March 2023.

Negative ETF Flows Continue

Many expected that the approval of Bitcoin ETFs would boost BTC by increasing demand and driving prices higher. However, this has not been the case so far. Instead, ETF outflows have become a concern, with a total of $390 million flowing out since trading began. The main driver of the trend is Grayscale’s GBTC, which has seen massive outflows, overshadowing the positive inflows from other Bitcoin ETFs. The scale of the outflows from GBTC is so large that it creates a net negative effect when considering all Bitcoin ETFs collectively.

A Bitcoin ETF holds a certain amount of Bitcoin, and each share represents a fraction of the total Bitcoin it holds. When many investors want to buy ETF shares, the demand can push the price of the ETF shares above the actual value of the underlying Bitcoin. In this case, Authorized Participants (APs), large financial institutions that work closely with the ETF provider, step in. The APs purchase BTC on the open market and exchange it with the ETF provider for new ETF shares, which they then sell to investors in the market at a