Recently, when comparing the price trend of Ethereum with that of Bitcoin, ETH appears to be clearly struggling.
Nevertheless, this is not a serious struggle, and since during bear markets situations like this are the norm, there is nothing particularly surprising about what is happening.
The risk for Ethereum is always the one related to competition, also because Bitcoin instead basically continues not to suffer from it at all. However, competition for Ethereum is still not that significant, all things considered.
Summary
Ethereum’s struggle
Starting from the end of January, the price of ETH first collapsed from $3,000 to $1,740, but then bounced back above $2,000. Since 7 February it has been moving sideways in a range between $1,800 and $2,400, with rare and small exceptions above and below these thresholds.
Bitcoin instead, starting from the second half of April, continued its rebound, going from $73,000 to $82,000, before returning to around $77,000. Ethereum did not experience this second small rebound.
To compare the performance of Ethereum with that of Bitcoin, it is useful to analyze the price trend of ETH in BTC (ETHBTC).
Between the end of January and the beginning of February, the price of Ethereum in Bitcoin fell from 0.0339 BTC to 0.0286, but in the first half of April it had climbed back above 0.0320 BTC.
The problem is that starting from 14 April a long decline began, which in theory might even still be underway, that brought it down to 0.0270 BTC. This latter level was the lowest since mid-July of last year, and in recent days it has risen only slightly to 0.0273.
To tell the truth, however, during 2025 much lower lows were reached, even down to 0.0177 BTC. Then in May of last year there was a strong and rapid rebound that in just one week brought it back above 0.0260 BTC, and then in the following months pushed it to record the local peak at 0.0416 on the day of the all-time high in the dollar price.
All this clearly illustrates how volatile over time the price of Ethereum in Bitcoin is, and how little the current situation should be considered worrying.
The bear-market problem
The point is that during crypto bear markets this pattern is typical.
That is, when crypto markets are struggling, the price of Ethereum generally underperforms that of Bitcoin almost all the time, except for rare and brief exceptions.
The one in March and April, when Ethereum went from 0.0290 BTC to 0.0320, is one of these rare and brief exceptions, and it cannot be ruled out that there may be others as well.
However, the minimum low of the previous cycle was reached below 0.0180 BTC, a level decidedly lower than the current one.
On the other hand, all this implies that during bull runs the price of Ethereum tends to perform better than that of Bitcoin, in percentage terms. It is no coincidence that during ETH’s bull run last year Ethereum went from less than 0.0180 BTC to more than 0.0430 BTC in the span of just three and a half months.
These are typical dynamics of the crypto markets, and the fact that they seem to be repeating should probably actually be interpreted as a potentially good sign, in the event that another crypto bull run eventually arrives.
Competition
On top of all this, however, there is another potential problem: competition.
For Bitcoin this problem actually does not arise, because it does not seem to have any competition.
For Ethereum instead there are crypto ecosystems, such as Solana’s, that can compete with it.
For example, between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024, the so-called Total3 rose by 260%, precisely while the price of Ethereum in Bitcoin was falling from 0.0625 BTC to 0.0334.
Total3 is the overall market capitalization of altcoins, excluding Ethereum (as well as obviously Bitcoin and stablecoins). Therefore it is clear that in 2023/2024 altcoins competed with Ethereum.
However, 2025 has not been great for altcoins, so much so that the price of Ethereum in dollars then managed to go on to record a new all-time high during the year.
Perhaps, though, to have a more solid picture it is better to compare DeFi TVL figures.
At the end of 2023 Ethereum’s TVL was just over 21 billion dollars, but in 2024 it jumped to 74 billion. During 2025 it even shot up to almost 100 billion, although still below the all-time record of 105 billion in November 2025.
Solana’s TVL (Ethereum’s main competitor) at the end of 2023 was tiny compared to Ethereum’s (only 300 million), but during 2024 it recorded a sensational jump to over 11 billion. Such growth is consistent with the scenario described earlier of competition with Ethereum during the 2023/2024 two-year period.
Then in 2025 Solana’s TVL rose only to 13 billion, consistent with a reduction in competition against Ethereum.
Currently Solana’s TVL has collapsed to 5.4 billion, while Ethereum’s is below 43, so as of today competition appears to be very limited.
