ETH/BTC pair hits YTD low as Bitcoin Leads Market

ETH/BTC hits its lowest level this year as Bitcoin soars to a new all-time high, fueling market dominance debates.

Bitcoin (BTC) reached an all-time high of $97,862.64 (1 a.m. EST). At the same time, Ethereum (ETH) continues to lag behind, with its performance against Bitcoin dropping to the lowest levels this year. BTC, consolidating near $97,379.69 at press time, has only opened questions on whether ETH can regain speed or mark a broader pullback in altcoins due to BTCs rally.

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Bitcoin Dominance Rises:

According to CoinMarketCap, BTCs share of the crypto market has climbed to 60.5%, which is a substantial uptick of over 3% in just a month. The surge comes as BTC hits an all-time high mainly fueled by investments from institutional investors.

“Today, more institutional investors are investing in Bitcoin compared to before. The second factor was the political landscape, particularly Donald Trump, who became the President-elect of the United States. Donald Trump has had an impact, and its said that he revised his stance on cryptocurrencies, with Elon Musk acting as a crypto-positive representative.” stated Edul Patel, CEO of Mudrex, in an interview with IndiaToday.

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

On the other hand, ETH‘s dominance has dropped to 11.8%, down from 13.8% last month. The ETH/BTC pair hitting a year-to-date low upholds that the second-largest cryptocurrency has not performed as well as BTC has this year. Looking at ETH’s price chart for the year, momentum has fluctuated, but it still lags behind BTCs upward trend.

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TradingView chart of ETH/USD 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, which currently scores 28, shows that the market is not favoring altcoin. The drop in market cap of altcoins compared to Bitcoin further indicates that liquidity is shifting from altcoins, including ETH, towards BTC.

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Will Ethereum pick the pace up？

The trajectory of ETHs recovery depends both on fundamental and technical factors in the ETH/BTC pair. While fundamental analysis shows the ongoing acceptance of Layer-2 solutions, development in decentralized finance, and active staking on Ethereum 2.0, technical analysis would indicate an initial level of support at 0.057 BTC, which could potentially act as a base. Resistance levels are at 0.065 BTC and 0.070 BTC, which mark critical thresholds ETH needs to break if it is to regain momentum.

Closing the gap will require ETH to break above resistance levels and ride out ongoing network upgrades; such moves might help the ETH/BTC pair regain their lost ground against Bitcoin.