Ethereum (ETH) Price Dips Below $1,800 Lagging Behind Bitcoin to Start the Week

Cryptocurrency prices displayed a mixed trend on Monday, with Ethereum lagging behind Bitcoin as the week began.

Ethereum (ETH)slipped by 2.9% to reach $1,783.53, while Bitcoin (BTC) showed strength with a 1% gain, reclaiming the $95,100 level.

The current data indicated that Ethereum was lagging, extending a weekend correction that saw ETH trading near the lower end of its 24-hour range, which was set between $1,782.07 and $1,848.73.

However, despite the short-term dip, a closer examination and analysis of mid-term price action revealed a strong bullish dominance, especially in the wake of U.S. President Trump’s softened stance on tariffs.

At the time of writing, CoinGecko data indicated that ETH’s weekly returns stood at +12.4%, contrasting with Bitcoin’s +10.6% over the same period.

However, shifting the focus to the monthly view, ETH’s 6.0% gain was lagging behind BTC’s double-digit surge.

This divergence highlighted the active capital rotation as traders leveraged the volatile macro sentiment to execute short-term plays.

What Happened?

Significantly, last week witnessed Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson delivering a scathing criticism of Ethereum, predicting that “Layer-2’s are sucking out all the alpha for ETH.”

Hoskinson's remarks, made in a CNBC interview aired on April 17, also warned that Ethereum “could collapse within 15 years” if the trend of overburdensome Layer-2 networks continued unchecked.

His comments sparked debate across crypto media channels regarding Ethereum’s long-term viability, especially as Arbitrum and Optimism led the charge in amassing user activity and fees.

In an indirect but timely response, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared a major scalability update on Sunday.

Through his vitalik.eth account, Buterin reposted product launch documentation from LayerZero Labs and Succinct Labs, proposing a shift from the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) to a more efficient zkVM system using RISC-V standards.

This update would expand Ethereum’s network capabilities with:

• Up to 832× fewer cycles than current EVM interpreters

• 95.7% reduction in proving cycles via precompiles

• 30× throughput increase with GPU acceleration

• 346MB → 1.5MB proof compression via recursion

This Layer-Zero vApps (Verifiable Applications) technology aims to combine Web2-level performance with Web3 verifiability, offering a new path to scaling Ethereum without excessive reliance on Layer-2 networks.

If successfully implemented, Vitalik’s Layer-Zero framework could reshape Ethereum’s scalability narrative, potentially alleviating long-term fears about ecosystem fragmentation

A transition to high-efficiency zkVM infrastructure could enhance Ethereum’s competitiveness against newer chains and reduce fees directly on the Layer-1 base.

In the short term, however, Ethereum price forecast hangs in the balances as it continues to languish below $1,800 and remains sensitive to short-term risks.