1. Comparison of market cap & current position
• BTC: still the number 1 digital asset, market cap ~2.2 trillion USD.
• ETH: market cap ~570 billion USD, about 25–27% of BTC's market cap
👉 If it wants to achieve 'flippening' (ETH surpassing BTC), ETH needs to increase 4–5 times compared to BTC, meaning BTC must stay flat or weaken while ETH surges significantly.
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2. Strengths of ETH
• Diverse ecosystem: DeFi, NFT, Layer-2, stablecoin, RWA (tokenization of real assets) all primarily run on Ethereum.
• Technology: after The Merge, ETH transitioned to PoS → reduced issuance, trending towards 'deflationary' (supply gradually decreases over time).
• Spot ETH ETF: institutional capital is starting to flow into ETH strongly like BTC before. This is a significant boost that helps ETH access large capital outside of the crypto market.
• Practical applicability: BTC is viewed as 'digital gold', while ETH is likened to a 'global computer' – a foundation for Web3 applications.
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3. Barriers & Reality
• Symbolic importance: BTC is the first crypto, longstanding trust → prioritized by funds and governments for reserves (there's even a proposal for a 'Bitcoin Strategic Reserve' in the US).
• Simple & conservative: BTC only serves as a store of value, not as complex as ETH → lower technological risk, making it suitable for large safe cash flows.
• Flippening potential:
• In the next 2–3 years, ETH could narrow the market cap gap if ETFs draw in capital strongly and Layer-2s explode.
• However, completely surpassing BTC is quite difficult unless ETH has a global killer app (e.g., tokenization of global financial assets, CBDC running on Ethereum).
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🔮 Scenario
• Short to medium-term reality (2025–2026): BTC remains number 1, with ETH closely following due to momentum from ETFs and DeFi.
• Long term (2030+): if traditional finance significantly shifts to blockchain, ETH has a real opportunity for 'flippening' thanks to its wide applicability.
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👉 In summary:
• ETH recently hitting a new peak is a very positive signal.
• Has the potential to narrow the gap with BTC, but to surpass BTC is not immediate – more time, global applications, and strong institutional capital are needed.