Two Prime Drops ETH Support, Adopts Bitcoin-Only Strategy

US-based investment advisory firm Two Prime has dropped support for Ether (ETH) and adopted a Bitcoin (BTC)-only strategy after the latter's statistical trading behavior, community culture, and value proposition went "uninteresting" to the firm.

"We value data more than narratives. As an algorithmic trading firm, we collect and analyze vast quantities of data to guide our investment decisions," Two Primes stated on May 1.

The firm, which has been lending in both Bitcoin and Ether over the past 15 months, decided to focus solely on BTC asset management and lending, having already deployed $1.5 billion in loans since 4Q 2024.

"Insomuch as the data suggests ETH has fundamentally changed, which isn't necessarily a bad thing," Two Primes added.

"After de-correlating completely from BTC, ETH has become nearly impossible to model predictably, even by the high volatility expectations of digital asset markets," the firm explained.

Such conditions "create a headache" for both algorithmic trading and ETH-back lending as the asset no longer behaves predictably.

"This lack of predictability renders both our core competency and preferred lending strategy suboptimal for ETH in its current form."

Founded in 2019 by Alexander Blum and Marc Fleury, Two Prime is an investment advisory firm registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm has been offering trading and lending services for both BTC and ETH for the past six years.

The firm's shift to a Bitcoin-only approach comes as ETH has lost 45% of its value year-to-date, with some optimists speculating that ETH is potentially close to the bottom and reversing its negative trend soon.

The firm's shift to a Bitcoin-only approach comes as ETH has lost 45% of its value year-to-date, with some optimists speculating that ETH is potentially close to the bottom and reversing its negative trend soon.

"What a retarded essay statement, considering S&P500 is down 4.7% YTD and has had extremely high volatility this year," one market observer wrote on X, reacting to Two Primes's statement.

"Never even heard of them. Seems irrelevant to me and I follow this space closely. Which community are we talking about here and what exactly is the value proposition of ETH that they're talking about?” another commentator added, appearing to express doubt on whether the community should rely on Two Prime's shifting approach to Ether.

"If this isn't a bottom signal for ETH idk [I don't know] what is. They're pivoting to a BTC-only strategy and closing out their ETH lending positions. Union Bank also reportedly closed out its crypto derivatives positions recently," another poster speculated, joining the many expecting ETH price to bounce following a downtrend cycle.

Two Primes also mentioned the weak performance of Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), highlighting that BTC ETF buying has outpaced ETH by almost 24 times.

"Finally, despite rumors of 'huge institutional inflows into ETH,' the data tells a different story. In the realm of ETFs specifically, BTC ETF buying has outpaced ETH ETF buying by nearly 24x this year alone. This despite the fact that the vast majority of new ETF approvals have been for ETH, not BTC. Among the few institutions that do appear to be interested in ETH, their focus has shifted heavily to lending rather than trading, which isn't surprising given the low interest rates and high yields available in the crypto lending market. But even in lending, BTC is still preferred—suggesting that the narrative of institutions plowing more money into ETH over BTC is simply incorrect. In fact, the failure of ETH's ETF creates a reflexive loop whereby institutions like BlackRock dedicate fewer resources to their promotion and sale. BTC has found the mainstream while ETH has floundered, leading to less institutional involvement in selling and promoting ETH products, which further hampers their performance, and so on. This vicious cycle explains why ETH's ETF performance has been underwhelming at best.

Despite Ether ETFs seeing low performance, Ether is still the biggest altcoin for crypto ETFs in terms of assets under management (AUM), far outpacing others like Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP).

According to the latest update from CoinShares, Ether-based exchange-traded products had $9.2 billion in AUM by the end of last week, while Solana and XRP followed with $1.4 billion and $1 billion, respectively.

Following approval from the US SEC in May 2024, spot Ether ETFs saw a slow start in 2024, with performance losing ground compared to the massive spot Bitcoin ETF debut.

Amid low investor demand, some issuers like VanEck ceased trading futures Ether ETFs, while WisdomTree withdrew its Ethereum Trust ETF proposal in September 2024. In March 202