Ethereum’s 2025 losses are inching towards 50%. This huge downturn can leave the token well behind Bitcoin and Solana. Ample reasons contribute to this performance lag, mainly the additional focus on layer-2 solutions and ETF inflows favoring BTC.
# 2024 Laid The Seedbed
2024 was ETH’s trailing year. The gain was only a meager 47%, compared to 2021’s massive surge of 400%. In the meantime, Bitcoin and Solana received major traction due to market shifts.
However, the momentum slowly developing around Ethereum started weakening. It dropped from 19% to 7%, and it became worse in 2025.
In addition, the ETH/BTC ratio fell to all-time lows. However, the SOL/ETH ratio leaped to amazing heights. That speaks volumes regarding ETH’s poor status compared to its competitors.
The Layer 2 Disaster
The Layer 2 roadmap is largely responsible for Ethereum’s downfall. In March 2024, the Dencun upgrade came. It introduced us to the blob space to store Layer 2 transactions. Since then, Ethereum’s revenue model has suffered greatly.
Users will argue that the upgrade lessened the platform fees and improved throughput, which is undeniable. At the same time, it amounted to a reduced revenue charter, and the inflationary supply growth appeared again.
The outcome- almost 7,30,000 new ETH tokens were minted in 2024.
# Solana’s Comparative Position
Solana has faced an increase in demand. The buzz around meme coins gave the coin more traction. Simultaneously, launching a new platform, Pumpfun, in 2024 increased the number of Solana addresses by 17 million.
The result was a sharp rise in revenue and price simultaneously!
# Bitcoin’s Comparative Positioning!
The big difference between BTC and ETH’s ETF inflows contributed to the latter’s underperformance. Spot ETFs gave Bitcoin the growth it deserved. The net inflows were $39.56 billion. In comparison, ETH stands nowhere!
