The recent market growth following the escalation of conflict in the Middle East has not altered the overall trend: Bitcoin continues to outpace Ethereum and other altcoins. This conclusion comes from analysts at JPMorgan, as reported by The Block.
According to the bank, digital gold is recovering faster—both in the spot ETF segment and in the futures market. Institutional investors are increasingly returning to the leading cryptocurrency: inflows into Bitcoin funds have compensated for two-thirds of the recent outflows, while Ethereum ETFs have only seen a third of that recovery.
Open positions on the CME for Bitcoin have returned to peak levels, while interest in Ethereum remains low.
Experts doubt that the hard forks Glamsterdam and Hegota, scheduled for this year, will change the situation. Previous network updates over the past three years have not led to a noticeable increase in activity—in fact, they have reduced transaction costs in L2 solutions, which has decreased the amount of burned fees and increased the supply of coins. This has created additional downward pressure on Ethereum's price.
Analysts attribute the weakness in the altcoin market since 2023 to three factors:
- low liquidity and insufficient market depth;
- stagnation in the decentralized finance sector;
- regular hacks and security issues.
These factors have undermined investor confidence and are hindering the influx of new capital into the ecosystem of alternative cryptocurrencies. The situation is unlikely to change without a significant surge in activity in real sector applications and DeFi, JPMorgan concluded.
As a reminder, on May 11, the price of digital gold tested $82,000, but traders continued to exercise caution.