Ethereum has underperformed Bitcoin on 85% of all trading days since it launched in 2015. The ETH/BTC ratio, which tracks the value of Ether relative to Bitcoin, dropped to a five-year low of 0.018 on April 9. The last time the ratio fell this low was in December 2019, when ETH was priced at $125 and BTC traded around $7,000.
Ethereum is now trading at around $1,670, according to CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin also declined but only by 6%, holding at $75,000—still over 275% higher than its 2017 bull market peak—before surging to over $83,000 near the end of the day. In contrast, ETH has fallen below its 2018 market cycle high. Analysts say this effectively erases nearly seven years of relative gains for Ether, placing most long-term holders in a loss position.
Ethereum briefly outperformed Bitcoin between mid-2015 and mid-2017 and again in late 2019 and early 2020. Since then, Bitcoin has consistently led the market. James Check, an analyst at Glassnode, highlighted that Ethereum has only outperformed Bitcoin on 15% of trading days in its entire history.
Growing concerns around the Ethereum network’s current state have started to surface. On April 8, Web3 researcher Stacy Muur noted that the number of active Ethereum addresses has remained roughly the same over the past four years. “I love Ethereum. However, it’s time to face reality: Ethereum has had [around] the same number of active addresses for the past 4 years,” she posted on X.
Others argue that user activity has shifted to Ethereum’s layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism. These platforms have grown significantly in total value locked, suggesting that users are moving to cheaper and faster alternatives within the Ethereum ecosystem. Data from L2beat confirms increased adoption of these scaling solutions.
Ethereum’s average transaction fees have also dropped to $0.41, the lowest since late August. This marks a significant fall from the $15.21 peak seen in the past two years, indicating reduced congestion on the network.
Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures blamed Ethereum’s weakening investment case on the rise of layer-2s and unchecked token creation. He said that “Greedy Eth L2s” are absorbing activity without giving much back to the base layer, and criticized the Ethereum community for allowing the platform to be “buried in an avalanche of its own tokens.”
Quinn Thompson, founder of Lekker Capital, also said Ethereum is “completely dead” as an investment, citing falling transaction activity, declining user growth, and dropping network revenues. Carter previously warned in September 2024 that Ethereum’s fee revenue had fallen 99% over six months as L2s took over user and revenue flows.
