Despite rolling out a large number of upgrades and innovations, the Ethereum price continues to lag behind Bitcoin (BTC) by a wide margin. Reports reveal that ETH has suffered a staggering 77% price crash against BTC — a decline likely fueled by a mix of technical, macro, and sentiment-driven factors. Notably, On-chain analytics platform, Santiment has now pinpointed and broken down the key reasons behind these price struggles. 

Ethereum Price Nosedives Against Bitcoin

On April 11, Santiment released a detailed report on Ethereum, highlighting its almost four-year underperformance and the reasons behind it. Ethereum, once revered as the cryptocurrency most likely to dethrone Bitcoin, has recently suffered a brutal price decline when measured directly against BTC.

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According to Santiment’s on-chain data, Ethereum has crashed by approximately 77% against Bitcoin since December 2021. While the dollar value of ETH hasn’t completely collapsed, especially compared to other altcoins, the long-term BTC/ETH ratio still paints a gruesome picture for Ethereum holders. 

Notably, Ethereum has also failed to recover anywhere near its November 2021 all-time high of $4,760. In contrast, Bitcoin has surged ahead, reclaiming much of its market dominance and outpacing ETH across almost every timeframe. 

This disparity has led many traders and former maximalists to compare ETH to a “shitcoin.” Even worse, various mid to low-cap altcoins have already outperformed Ethereum over the short, mid, and long-term timeframes, causing further embarrassment for the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Based on Santiment’s report, the ETH/BTC price ratio chart alone is enough to trigger doubt and uncertainty among long-term holders.

Behind The Scenes Of Ethereum Price Struggles

Beyond price action and market volatility, Santiment reveals that there are fundamental reasons for Ethereum’s sluggish performance over the years. Some of the major criticisms that analysts and traders have pinpointed include technical, sentimental, and regulatory issues.

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Ironically, Ethereum’s Layer 2 solutions are one of the key drivers of its underperformance. L2 solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync are reportedly cannibalizing activity on the mainnet, taking investments from ETH while spreading investor attention thin. 

Secondly, Ethereum seems to struggle with complex roadmaps and communication, which has led to investor confusion. Major updates like The Merge and Shanghai have been difficult for investors to comprehend, making ETH feel less accessible than BTC. 

Thirdly, users remain frustrated by Ethereum’s relatively high gas fees and the slow rollout of key upgrades. This has pushed them toward more affordable and faster alternatives, significantly reducing adoption.

Another primary reason for Ethereum’s crash against Bitcoin is ongoing regulatory concerns. Unlike Bitcoin, which has a more established legal precedent, Ethereum faces constant uncertainty about whether it could be labeled a security. 

Other points include ETH’s lack of investment appeal. While Bitcoin maintains the title as a stable digital gold, Ethereum appears to be caught in between, having no clear or attractive investment narrative. Moreover, newer blockchains like Solana and Cardano are also attracting a significant number of users with cheaper and faster solutions, ultimately pulling investments away from ETH.

The final reason Santiment has identified for Ethereum’s long-term price descent is rising selling pressure. Post-upgrade withdrawals of stakes ETHs have created steady sell-side pressure, limiting growth and momentum compared to Bitcoin.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com

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The Ethereum token has been under significant bearish pressure over the past few months, losing almost half of its value in the first quarter of 2025. Along with the rest of the altcoin market, ETH bled severely following the announcement of new trade tariffs by United States President Donald Trump.

Interestingly, the suspension of these trade tariffs didn’t have as much of a bullish effect on the “king of the altcoins,” which failed to hold above the $1,600 level in the past day. This inability of the Ethereum price to mount a convincing recovery emphasizes the token’s struggles in recent months.

Is The Price Bottom In For ETH? 

Crypto analyst with the pseudonym Cryptollica shared fresh on-chain insight in a post on the X platform, suggesting that the price of Ethereum could be at a pivotal point of bullish reversal. This projection is based on the Mayer Multiple indicator, which measures the ratio between an asset price and its 200-day moving average (MA).

The 200-day MA represents the long-term average price of an asset; and the Mayer Multiple estimates the distance of the asset’s actual price from this average value to determine overbought and oversold conditions. The metric indicates an overheating market condition and a potential price top when its value is above the 2.4 mark.

On the flip side, a Mayer Multiple value below 0.8 signals an oversold condition and that the asset’s price might have hit a bottom. Ultimately, the metric is used to determine macro bull or bear his when analyzing cyclical price changes.

Source: @cryptollica on X

According to the Glassnode chart shared by Cryptollica, the Ethereum Mayer Multiple recently slipped beneath the 0.8 mark. This suggests that the price of ETH might be bottoming out, with a potential bullish reversal on the horizon.

Moreover, the last time the Mayer Multiple indicator fell to this low in 2022, the price of Ethereum rebounded to above the $4,000 mark — the price high in the current cycle. If history repeats itself, the second-largest cryptocurrency could embark on another journey to $4,000 — an over 150% rally from the current price point — over the coming months.

Ethereum Price At A Glance

As of this writing, the price of ETH stands at around $1,550, reflecting a mere 1% jump in the past 24 hours. Despite the slightly improving market sentiment, the altcoin’s performance on the weekly timeframe has remained almost the same. According to CoinGecko data, the Ethereum price is down by nearly 15% in the past seven days.

The price of ETH on the daily timeframe | Source: ETHUSDT chart on TradingView

Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView

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