Ethereum's sluggishness, called "silver" in the virtual asset world, is prolonged

Bitcoin rose to $94,977 earlier in the day, renewing its all-time high again. However, the ratio of Ethereum to Bitcoin reached its lowest level in about four years.

Ethereum (ETH), the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and known in the virtual asset world as "silver," continues to trade in the red.

Earlier in the day, Bitcoin (BTC) rose to $94,977, once again notching a new all-time high.

However, the ETH/BTC price ratio hit its lowest level in about four years.

This is because ETH continues to be sluggish compared to Bitcoin's remarkable rise.

The poor performance in spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the intensifying competition with late-stage layer 1 blockchains are cited as the reasons.

According to Binance, a global exchange, on the 21st, the ETH/BTC price ratio, was 0.0326 as of 10:30 a.m. that day.

This means that the price of Ethereum per unit is only 3.26% of the price of Bitcoin.

This is the lowest since March 31, 2021.

At the beginning of this year, ETH was 5.39% of the price of Bitcoin, but this rate has decreased throughout this year.

Bitcoin is up about 124% this year, while Ethereum is up only 35%.

Ethereum has not been able to keep up with the rise in Bitcoin's price.

Investors' turn away from Ethereum is also clear in the flow of ETF funds in kind.

Bitcoin continued its good trend this week with a net inflow of more than $1.231.2 billion, but Ethereum had a net outflow of $167.4 million.

Moreover, Ethereum has seen net outflows for five consecutive trading days since the 14th.

The total funds flowing in since the launch of the Ethereum ETF are also only $11.3 million.

It is incomparable to Bitcoin, which has a net inflow of $28.69 billion.

"It took a while for traditional financial investors to integrate Bitcoin ETFs into their portfolios. On the other hand, Ethereum did not have enough time and did not seem to attract much attention," said Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise.

Another reason for Ethereum's sluggish performance is that it has not shown a clear advantage in competition with late-stage layer 1 blockchains, such as Solana (SOL) and Sui (SUI).

Solana, which is dubbed the "Etherium Killer," recently received more than $11.84 million a day in commission income from the blockchain due to the popularity of meme coins.

This is because Solana's meme coin launch platform, "Pumpfun," has attracted many users as anyone can easily and cheaply produce and trade meme coins.

Another reason for Ethereum's sluggishness is that Sui, Sei, and Aptos, who use the programming language "Move," which is easier than Ethereum's programming language "Solidity" and shows great advantages in network speed, are gaining popularity.

In the blockchain market, competition to attract a pool of insufficient developer manpower is fierce, and the expandability and speed of the Move language are gaining popularity among developers.

According to analysts, its attractiveness as a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform is also declining.

DeFiRama data shows that 18.59 million ETH were deposited on the Ethereum network, which is up 39.45% from 13.33 million at the beginning of the year.

It is a disappointing achievement compared to Solana's 146.70% increase from 14.28 million to 35.23 million.

The assets deposited in each blockchain represent the activity and stability of that chain.