Ethereum (ETH) Underperforms Bitcoin (BTC)

underperformed Bitcoin on 85% of all trading days since it launched in 2015. The ETH/BTC ratio, which tracks the value of Ether relative to Bitcoin, dropped to a five-year low of 0.018

Despite the broader cryptocurrency market downturn, which saw both Bitcoin and Ether decline on Monday, the ETH/BTC ratio reached a five-year low.

According to Ben Lilly, a crypto analyst at Legal Block Chain, the last time the ratio fell this low was in December 2019, when ETH was priced at $125 and BTC traded around $7,000. In comparison, on Monday, April 9, at press time, Ether was trading at around , while Bitcoin also declined but only by 6%, holding at $75,000—still over 275% higher than its 2017 bull market peak.

While Bitcoin is lagging behind its 2022 all-time highs, which reached $87,000 in November, it has managed to stay above key support levels at $70,000, which could indicate that the current market cycle is not yet over.

In contrast, ETH has fallen below its 2018 market cycle high. According to analysts, this effectively erases nearly seven years of relative gains for Ether, placing most long-term holders in a loss position.

suggest that the number of active Ethereum addresses has remained roughly the same over the past four years. “I love Ethereum. However, it’s time to face reality: Ethereum has had [around] the same number of active addresses for the past 4 years,” she noted on X.

According to data from L2beat, there are now 86 operational Layer 2 networks on Ethereum, and they collectively boast over 5.6 million unique active addresses.

Pointing out the lack of activity on-chain, noted that “Greedy Eth L2s” are absorbing activity without giving much back to the base layer, and criticized the Ethereum community for allowing the platform to be “buried in an avalanche of its own tokens.”