ETH/BTC Ratio Hits 5-Year Low and Underperforms Bitcoin on 85% of Trading Days Ethereum has underperformed Bitcoin on 85% of all trading days since it launched in 2015.
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.