This week, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ethereum (ETH), has posted impressive gains, reaching a new all-time high of $2,736 on Wednesday, an 11.48% increase over the past seven days. The rally was particularly notable as ETH rebounded faster than most digital assets after last week's broader market correction.
Price Action and Dominance Shift
On Tuesday, April 27, ETH first breached the $2,706 level before climbing to the new record the following day. Over the past week, ether has also gained 10% against bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin's dominance index has consequently dropped to 49.2%, while ethereum's share now stands at 14.9%, indicating a clear capital rotation from BTC to ETH.
On a longer timeframe, ETH is up 48.3% against the U.S. dollar over the last month, 102% over three months, and a staggering 1,270.57% over the past 12 months. Against BTC, ether has gained 55% in 30 days and 22% in 90 days. However, since hitting the ATH, ETH has pulled back about 2.55% during early Wednesday trading sessions.
Berlin Upgrade and Gas Fee Relief
The implementation of Ethereum's “Berlin” upgrade on April 15 has led to a noticeable drop in gas fees, reinvigorating decentralized finance (DeFi) activity this week. The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi now stands at a colossal $63.2 billion, with Maker accounting for 15.83% of that. Additionally, ethereum settlement volume is gradually catching up with BTC.
Transaction Volume and Network Activity
In the last 24 hours, the BTC network settled $75.1 billion in transactions, while the ETH network processed $23.57 billion. However, in terms of transaction count, ethereum far outpaces bitcoin: 1.45 million transactions on ETH versus 289,613 on BTC. The median transaction fee for BTC is $14.31, compared to just $5.89 for ETH.
Ethereum as Bitcoin's Top Sidechain
Ethereum has emerged as bitcoin's number one sidechain, hosting 201,058 wrapped or synthetic bitcoin tokens— more than any other chain. The Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) project alone accounts for 156,936 of those. Moreover, ethereum settlement volumes have surpassed those of traditional payments giant PayPal. Twitter user @spencernoon noted: “PayPal settled $936 billion in payments last year. Ethereum settled $1.5 trillion in transactions just last quarter. This figure is also growing exponentially. PayPal’s market cap is $310 billion, while the ETH market cap is $263 billion.” Since that tweet, ETH's market cap has climbed to approximately $311 billion.
Overall, ethereum is outperforming bitcoin on multiple key metrics—from market dominance to network activity to DeFi ecosystem growth—suggesting that the momentum behind ETH may still have room to run.