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Ethereum’s blockchain transitioned from work-based security to a financialized security model on September 15, 2022. Since it forked to proof-of-stake (PoS), ether ($ETH) has made new lows against bitcoin ($BTC).
The Merge (and earlier changes like EIP-1559) were supposed to cleanse the blockchain of its electricity-guzzling stigma, and the community latched onto the changes in $ETH issuance as a new era for $ETH as deflationary, “ultrasound money”
Instead, the event simply marked one of the best-ever prices to have sold $ETH for $BTC.
With the price of $ETH now trading at a four-year low against $BTC, consider these additional metrics of underperformance.
Price
Ether’s price — the first and most important metric — is a disappointing starting point. When it celebrated its move to PoS, it cost 0.074 $BTC to buy one $ETH. $ETH then proceeded down a never-ending slide.
Today, it costs just 0.022 $BTC to buy one $ETH — 70% cheaper than when it was secured by the work of actual miners.
Market cap dominance
On September 15, 2022, $ETH was worth 17.7% of the value of all crypto assets. $BTC’s market dominance on that day was 37.6%.
In the two and a half years since, $ETH’s market share has declined embarrassingly. Whereas $BTC rallied to 58.9% market dominance, $ETH has halved to a paltry 8%.
Flippening
Over the same time period, $ETH’s flippening ratio has plummeted. On the day of The Merge, $ETH was 44.4% of the way to flipping $BTC with a rally of just 2.3X needed to attain a greater market cap.
Today, the flippening ratio has crashed to 13.8%, and $ETH would need to rally 7.3X to become larger than $BTC.
Read more: Bitcoin flippened silver and Saudi Aramco — are Google and Amazon next?
Active wallets
On September 15, 2022, Bitcoin had 841,579 active addresses. Fast forward to today, and it has lost 21% of those users. It now boasts 665,063 active addresses.
$ETH failed to outperform on even this disappointing metric. On September 15, 2022, Ethereum had 619,189 active addresses but has lost a similar 21% of its active addresses as of today. That figure now stands at 486,636.
Trading volume
$BTC has also siphoned trading activity from $ETH since it abandoned work-based security. On September 15, 2022, $ETH’s $25 billion was a respectable 73% of $BTC’s $34 billion volume.
Today, that percentage has dropped to 59%: $19 billion versus $BTC’s $32 billion.