Ether more ‘like a memecoin,’ says trading firm as ETH drops 45% YTD

3 days ago

As Ether’s terms has struggled successful the archetypal 4th of 2025, a US-based concern advisor firm, Two Prime, has dropped enactment for ETH and adopted a Bitcoin-only strategy.

After lending $1.5 cardinal successful loans some successful Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) implicit the past 15 months, Two Prime decided to ditch ETH to absorption solely connected BTC plus absorption and lending, the steadfast announced connected May 1.

“ETH’s statistical trading behavior, worth proposition, and assemblage civilization person failed beyond a constituent that is worthy engaging,” Two Primes stated.

The firm’s displacement to a Bitcoin-only attack comes arsenic ETH has mislaid 45% of its worth year-to-date, with immoderate optimists speculating that ETH is perchance adjacent to the bottom and reversing its antagonistic inclination soon.

“Ether nary longer trades predictably”

“As an algorithmic trading firm, we worth information much than narratives,” Two Primes said, adding that the “data suggests ETH has fundamentally changed.”

In summation to de-correlating from Bitcoin, Ether has go nary longer predictable, Two Primes argued, adding:

“It trades present similar a memecoin alternatively than a predictable asset. Even during the turbulence of Q1 2025, Bitcoin remained wrong its cardinal behavior, whereas ETH saw respective multi-standard deviation moves.”

Two Primes past went connected to accidental that specified conditions “create a headache” for some algorithmic trading and ETH-back lending arsenic the plus nary longer behaves predictably, “even by the precocious volatility expectations of integer plus markets.”

Founded successful 2019 by Alexander Blum and Marc Fleury, Two Prime is an concern advisory steadfast registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The steadfast has been offering trading and lending services for some BTC and ETH for the past six years.

Community fires back: ETH bottommost signal

Two Prime’s captious remarks astir Ether were speedy to trigger responses from the community, with galore seeing the connection arsenic different bottommost awesome for the cryptocurrency.

“What a retarded effort statement,” 1 marketplace perceiver wrote connected X, citing the precocious volatility of the S&P 500, which dropped 4.7% YTD.

Source: SEMB

“Never adjacent heard of them. Seems irrelevant,” different commentator said, expressing uncertainty connected whether the assemblage should trust connected Two Prime’s shifting attack to Ether.

“If this isn’t a bottommost awesome for ETH idk [I don’t know] what is,” different poster speculated, joining the galore expecting ETH terms to bounce pursuing a downtrend cycle.

Who other ditched ETH successful the past months?

Two Primes besides mentioned the anemic show of Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), highlighting that BTC ETF buying has outpaced ETH by astir 24 times. 

“The nonaccomplishment of ETH’s ETF creates a reflexive loop whereby institutions similar BlackRock dedicate less resources to their promotion and sale. BTC has recovered the mainstream portion ETH has floundered,” the steadfast stated.

Related: Vitalik Buterin outlines imaginativeness arsenic Ethereum ecosystem addresses deed caller high

Despite Ether ETFs seeing debased performance, Ether is inactive the biggest altcoin for crypto ETFs successful presumption of assets nether absorption (AUM), acold outpacing others similar Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP).

According to the latest update from CoinShares, Ether-based exchange-traded products had $9.2 cardinal successful AUM by the extremity of past week, portion Solana and XRP followed with $1.4 cardinal and $1 billion, respectively.

Crypto ETP flows by plus (in millions of US dollars). Source: CoinShares

Following approval from the US SEC successful May 2024, spot Ether ETFs saw a dilatory commencement successful 2024, with show losing crushed compared to the massive spot Bitcoin ETF debut.

Amid debased capitalist demand, immoderate issuers similar VanEck ceased trading futures Ether ETFs, portion WisdomTree withdrew its Ethereum Trust ETF proposal successful September 2024. In March 2025, ARK liquidated its futures ETFs for some Ether and Bitcoin.

Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the contention successful the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race

View source