ETH/BTC pair hits YTD low as Bitcoin Leads Market

ETH/BTC reached its lowest level this year as Bitcoin rose to an all-time high, fueling discussions of market dominance.

Bitcoin (BTC) reached its all-time high of $97,862.64 (01:00 EST). At the same time, Ethereum (ETH) continues to lag behind, with its performance against Bitcoin falling to its lowest levels this year. BTC, which is consolidating around $97,379.69 at the time of writing, has only raised questions about whether ETH could regain momentum or whether it could signal a broader pullback in altcoins due to BTC’s rise.

Bitcoin Dominance Is Rising:

According to CoinMarketCap, BTC’s share of the crypto market has increased to 60.5%; This represents a significant increase of over 3% in just one month. The increase comes as BTC hits an all-time high, fueled mainly by investments from institutional investors.

“Today, more institutional investors are investing in Bitcoin than ever before. The second factor was the political environment, especially Donald Trump, the elected president of the United States. Donald Trump has had an impact and is said to be revising his stance on cryptocurrencies, with Elon Musk acting as a crypto-positive representative. Mudrex CEO Edul Patel said in an interview with IndiaToday.

TradingView chart of ETH/BTC pair on YTD | Source: crypto.news

On the other hand, ETH’s dominance decreased to 11.8% from 13.8% last month. The ETH/BTC pair reaching its lowest level since the beginning of the year confirms that the second-largest cryptocurrency has not performed as well as BTC this year. Looking at ETH’s annual price chart, momentum appears to be fluctuating, but it still lags behind BTC’s uptrend.

ETH/USD TradingView chart in YTD | Source: crypto.news

The Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator for ETH also points to some momentum struggles at critical resistance levels. Meanwhile, the Altcoin Season Index, currently at 28 points, shows that the market is not favoring the altcoin. The decline in the market value of altcoins compared to Bitcoin indicates that liquidity is shifting away from altcoins, including ETH, towards BTC.

Will Ethereum accelerate?

The course of ETH’s recovery depends on both fundamental and technical factors in the ETH/BTC pair. Fundamental analysis indicates continued adoption of Layer-2 solutions, development in decentralized finance, and active staking on Ethereum 2.0, while technical analysis may indicate an initial support level at 0.057 BTC that could potentially serve as a base. Resistance levels are at 0.065 BTC and 0.070 BTC, which mark critical thresholds that must be broken if ETH gains momentum.

Closing the gap will require ETH to break above resistance levels and overcome ongoing network upgrades; Such moves could help the ETH/BTC pair regain lost ground against Bitcoin.