The past two months have been disappointing for ethereum investors. Since nearing $400 at the beginning of September, the ethereum price has demonstrated an inability to mount a sustained rally past $300, even as bitcoin has achieved all-time highs on an almost weekly basis.
The ethereum price has plunged to a seven-month low against the value of bitcoin.
Ethereum did make some movement on Thursday, but it was not in the direction investors would prefer. The ethereum price fell 6% as traders liquidated their holdings to add more fuel to bitcoin’s bull run, temporarily forcing it below $280 although it has since recovered to about $290.
Ethereum Price Falls to 7-Month Low Against BTC
However, the situation appears far more dire after examining the ETH/BTC price trend. It is no secret that bitcoin has been consolidating its position as the dominant cryptocurrency; at present, bitcoin controls nearly 63% of the total crypto market cap, and that number has been steadily rising over the past few weeks.
However, ethereum came dangerously close to achieving the “Flippening” – raising its market cap above that of bitcoin and becoming the largest cryptocurrency – so one might have expected it to prove to be more resilient than the legion of altcoins with much smaller market caps. This has not been the case.
At present, ethereum is trading at approximately 0.04 BTC. The last time ethereum was valued so low against the price of bitcoin was the last week of April, when the ethereum price was just $50. Moreover, it is roughly one-fourth of ETH/BTC’s all-time high, which topped out at close to 0.16 BTC in mid-June.
Hope on the Horizon
Nevertheless, while ethereum’s short-term performance has fizzled, investors have reason to remain bullish on the platform’s long-term prospects. Though overshadowed by the massive bitcoin price rise, this week’s Devcon3 conference will likely shed some light on the cryptocurrency’s future.
On Wednesday Vitalik Buterin laid out a multi-year roadmap that explains some of the issues facing the platform – most notably scalability – and how developers intend to address them. Moreover, Vlad Zamfir released a draft of a whitepaper for Casper, the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that developers have been previewing for some time now.
Many of the projects that are being discussed at Devcon3 will take months or years to accomplish, so it is too early to predict when the ethereum price will turn a corner. However, current investors should continue to look to the future with optimism.
