According to analysts, Ethereum has only surpassed Bitcoin on 15% of all trading days since its inception nearly a decade ago.
Since Ether (ETH) began trading in mid-2015, it has lagged behind Bitcoin (BTC) 85% of the time, as noted by analyst James Check in a post on X dated April 8.
Check’s data reveals that Ether outperformed Bitcoin notably in its initial years, from mid-2015 to about mid-2017, and also had brief periods in late 2019 and early 2020 when the ETH to BTC ratio favored Ether.
Conversely, Bitcoin has consistently outperformed Ether over the last five years.
ETH/BTC profitable days. Source: James Check
The ETH/BTC ratio, which depicts Ether’s price in relation to Bitcoin, dropped to a five-year low of 0.018 on April 9, according to TradingView.
The last occasion the ratio dipped below its current figure was in December 2019, when ETH plummeted to $125 while Bitcoin was around $7,000.
Ether has erased seven years of gains, declining an additional 10% over the past 24 hours to below $1,450, falling beneath its 2018 market cycle peak.
On April 9, ETH hit $1,400 in early trading, as reported by CoinGecko. In contrast, Bitcoin faced a 6% drop that day, settling at $75,000, which remains 275% above its peak during the bull market seven years ago.
Concerns about Ethereum’s “Stagnation”
Supporters of Ethereum have expressed worries regarding the network’s growth, especially as the token struggled to gain momentum earlier this year when Bitcoin achieved a new price peak.
“I love Ethereum. However, it’s time to face reality: Ethereum has had [approximately] the same number of active addresses for the past four years,” Web3 researcher Stacy Muur remarked on X on April 8.
Related: Ethereum price hits a 2-year low, yet pro traders remain optimistic
Nevertheless, other researchers highlighted that a significant number of new addresses are on Ethereum layer-2 scaling networks, which have seen a surge in the value locked on-chain over the past couple of years, according to L2beat.
While most long-term ETH investors are currently at a loss, technical indicators like fractal patterns observed in 2018 and 2022 suggest that the asset is approaching oversold conditions, and a potential bottom near the $1,000 level may be on the horizon, as per Cointelegraph analysis.
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