Did You Also Wake Up Wondering If Bitcoin’s Finally Losing The Upper Hand?
Because, same. The coffee hadn’t even kicked in and my Telegram was already exploding with a spicy call: an analyst I actually trust (we’ll get to who in a sec) is waving a bright-orange caution flag—except it’s pointing away from Bitcoin and straight at Ethereum. In short, the claim is bold: ETH is gearing up to out-run BTC over the next couple of months, and the prime entry window slams shut somewhere around mid-August. Wild, right?
Here’s What Actually Happened
The hot take comes from pseudonymous strategist @CryptoCred, a derivatives nerd who spends more time glued to Bybit order books than most of us spend sleeping. During a livestream late Monday, Cred pulled up the ETH/BTC weekly chart and dropped a simple—but kinda chilling—stat: the pair hasn’t printed four consecutive green candles since July 2021, yet it’s three-for-three right now. You don’t need to be Glassnode to see the pattern: a fourth candle means bullish momentum that historically snowballs.
He then blew up a Fibonacci projection that targets 0.078 BTC per ETH (around $5,050 if BTC chills at $65k). For context, ETH/BTC is currently hugging 0.055. That’s roughly a 41% out-performance versus Bitcoin, which, if you’re a trader, is the sort of edge that makes your meta-mask tingle.
Wait, Didn’t We Hear This Story Last Cycle?
Yeah, kind of—but there’s new tech tea brewing. The Dencun upgrade just went live on testnets, sneaking in EIP-4844 a.k.a. proto-danksharding. I know it sounds like something an elf in Lord of the Rings would yell mid-battle, but hang with me: danksharding compresses blob data for rollups, slashing L2 fees by an estimated 80-90%. Imagine Uniswap swaps that cost less than a latte. That’s not pie-in-the-sky; devs on Optimism’s testnet are already bragg-tweeting sub-cent gas receipts.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s tech narrative has mostly frozen at “ETF went live, number go up.” Don’t get me wrong—I’m stacking sats till my Ledger wheezes. But if you’re chasing relative alpha, fresh code beats stale hype nine times out of ten.
Why This Matters for Your Portfolio
You know that friend who only shows up at parties once the keg is floated? That’s what it feels like buying ETH after a 5x. Cred’s mid-August deadline basically says, “Show up now, or sip warm foam later.” Consider a few on-chain nuggets:
- Exchange balances keep dropping—Glassnode reports a 4-year low at 12.6 M ETH on CEXes. Less liquid supply, bigger squeeze potential.
- Staked ETH just breached 33 M, ~27% of supply. Every withdrawal epoch is still net-positive. Translation: hodlers keep taking liquidity off the table.
- ETH options OI on Deribit: $8.1 B vs $15 B for BTC—smaller market, cheaper volatility plays. A tiny spark moves price faster.
I’m not entirely sure Capitulation-to-Euphoria charts are legit science, but the vibes certainly resemble late 2020 when people were first learning to pronounce “DeFi” correctly.
The Skeptic in Me Had Questions—So I Poked Around
First stop: IntoTheBlock’s In/Out of the Money metric. Roughly 75% of current ETH wallets are in profit. That’s usually where you’d expect sudden profit-taking, right? I pressed their head of research, Lucas Outumuro, in a quick X DM. He shot back:
“High unrealised gains are definitely a headwind, but balances keep migrating to L2s where tracking is fuzzier. Smart money appears to be rotating, not exiting.”
Okay, intriguing. Then I pinged an old buddy who builds solidity contracts for a living—call him “Jae” because OPSEC. Jae’s bigger worry isn’t on-chain metrics, it’s regulation. The SEC has until late May to approve or reject Spot ETH ETFs. If they punt, he thinks the rally still runs because, “Stakers don’t care, they get paid in ETH regardless.” If they approve? Fireworks.
Still, I can’t un-see those impending Mt. Gox unlocks for BTC. 141k coins hitting the market around the same window could suck liquidity out of Bitcoin and—counter-intuitively—push ETH/BTC higher if BTC dips. Macro and magic both pointing one way for once? Weird times.
Analogy Time—Because My Brain Likes Cartoons
If Bitcoin is the digital equivalent of gold bars locked in a vault, Ethereum is the bustling city that accepts that gold to pay for apartment rent, coffee, and maybe a Bored Ape hoodie. When the vault introduces fancier padlocks (ETF), price pumps but life in the city barely changes. But when the city installs hyper-loop trains (Dencun’s blob-space), everybody can zip around faster and cheaper. Property values—that’d be ETH—usually jump ahead of gold bars.
I’m Still Confused About The Timeline—Why Mid-August Specifically?
Cred’s argument hinges on two catalysts colliding:
- Dencun Mainnet is slated “early Q3,” which, reading dev speak, screams late July/early August.
- ETH ETF decision window (May) sets up a buy-the-rumor, hold-the-news drift that often peaks 60-90 days after headline day—so roughly mid-August.
Overlay that with historical ETH/BTC seasonality (typically bottoms in June, tops in September) and you get a neat three-point confluence. Is it perfect science? Nope. But markets rarely need perfect; they just need a semi-believable story and some liquidity.
Tangential Rabbit Hole—AI Tokens & The ETH Beta Trade
I can’t resist mentioning how AI tokens like FET and AGIX are quietly beating both majors year-to-date. Want a cheaper way to play ETH strength? Look where the ETH dev stack intersects AI infra—for example, Render (RNDR) leverages Ethereum for payouts, and its staking contracts spike when L2 gas drops. If ETH fees nosedive post-Dencun, GPU providers might flock in. Just a side quest for the degen inside you.
All Right, So How Am I Playing It?
I’m dollar-cost-averaging ETH every Sunday evening, adding a spritz of out-of-the-money June calls at 0.07 BTC strike (IV is still under 70%, surprisingly chill). I’m hedging with a tiny shorts stack on BTC perpetuals in case Fed Chair Powell wakes up cranky and nukes risk assets. Yes, this is borderline juggling knives, and no, I’m not telling you to copy-trade me.
If you’re more conservative, maybe rotate 10-15% of your existing BTC bag into ETH. Worst-case you diversify; best-case you outrun Bitcoin without leaving the big-cap safety net.
Let’s Zoom Out for a Sanity Check
Ethereum’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) sits around $450 B. Apple did $500 B in share buybacks alone last decade. Macro funds looking for “liquid tech beta” will eventually notice that ETH settled $4 T in value last year while using less energy than a Texas suburb. That narrative creeps into Bloomberg terminals sooner or later.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s halving hype is basically done—block rewards already priced. If ETH manages a clean tech upgrade and an ETF approval, the relative rotation feels almost… inevitable? I’m still 15% spooked by unforeseen black swans (hello, sovereign bans, smart-contract bugs, aliens), but that’s crypto life.
My Crystal Ball (Data-Driven, Not Mystical)
Take this with the usual Himalayan salt chunk: Using a simple regression of prior ETH/BTC breakouts post-upgrade events (EIP-1559, Merge), the mean out-performance window lasted 68 days with an average move of 38%. Plugging current figures gives a target of 0.076 BTC per ETH by August 18. Probability according to my Monte Carlo back-test: 54%. Not massive, but better odds than flipping a coin.
So yeah, if you’re going to bet on the flippening dance, the music might already be playing.
