Ether Rally Turns Into Crypto Market Slide With Bitcoin Slipping Below $96K

Ethereum's ether ($ETH) showed strength through the weekend, spurring investor hopes of a break in its lackluster price performance, only to foreshadow a market-wide decline.

In a muted trading session due to the U.S. holiday, ether ground as much as 7% higher to a Monday session high of $2,850, outperforming the rest of the crypto market. Then, it gave up most of the gains, dropping back to $2,730 as the broader market fell, with bitcoin ($BTC) falling to $95,500 from just above $97,000. Still, $ETH held onto its 2% advance over the past 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 20 Index and $BTC were about 2% lower.

Traders were quick to point out past occasions, like late January and early February, when a brief $ETH rally foreshadowed broader weakness in crypto prices. Then, ether's 10% rally to $3,400 in three days ended in an ugly capitulation event over trade war concerns, with $BTC dropping 13% and $ETH tumbling 35% to nearly $2,000 through a low-volume weekend.

Ether's strength occurred as memecoin fiascos such as Argentina's LIBRA on Solana and BNB Chain-based BROCCOLI — inspired by former Binance CEO CZ revealing his dog's name — weighed on the tokens of rival layer-1 networks.

"$ETH’s recent price action isn’t an outperformance — it’s more of a catch-up to where it should be," Aran Hawker, CEO of trading automation platform CoinPanel, told CoinDesk over Telegram. "Some traders may have rotated back into $ETH from SOL, but there’s no clear trend shift or structural change. Any perceived outperformance could be erased by the next major market move."

Joel Kruger, a market strategist for LMAX Group, was more optimistic, saying the price action might be a sign of ether ending its multiyear slide against bitcoin.

"There is evidence of $ETH potentially wanting to finally put in a major bottom against bitcoin after downtrending since 2021," Kruger said in Monday's market note. "We believe it will be important to keep a close eye on the current monthly high in the ETHBTC ratio, with a break back above to encourage the reversal outlook."

Crypto traders' interest in betting on $ETH spiked on Monday relative to $BTC, CoinGlass data shows. Open interest for $ETH futures rose 12% to 9.27 million contracts (worth nearly $2.6 billion) on all exchanges combined over the past 24 hours, led by offshore marketplaces Binance and Gate.io while $BTC futures open interest grew only 1%.