Who Is Excelling This Year: BTC or ETH?
Bitcoin and Ethereum have been at the top of the cryptocurrency market for quite a while now.
Both have benefited from a pioneering status in their own niche — Bitcoin as a digital currency, and Ethereum as a smart contract platform.
That being said, the community is continuously trying to pit these against each other and figure out which one has the better potential in the long run.
Can Bitcoin remain sustainable with its archaic proof of work consensus? Or is it time for Ethereum to come out on top with its newly released proof of stake and utility?
We will try to answer these questions and provide you with a status report on both of these cryptocurrencies’ current market positions.
What’s more, we will explore some experts’ opinions and price predictions, which should give you an idea of whether swapping BTC to ETH is the right choice in 2022.
Analyzing the Current State
The cryptocurrency market as a whole is experiencing a heavy downturn since the beginning of the year. Consequently, riskier assets like cryptocurrencies have been losing value due to massive selloffs in the industry.
To add to this, major protocol failures like the Terra/Luna debacle have contributed significantly to an even more grim crypto environment. The result is a strong bear market, where most cryptocurrencies have lost 80% since January.
BTC Market Position
Bitcoin’s narrative is that it’s a strong store of value and hedge against inflation. However, facing recession and high inflation, BTC has instead once again fallen to cycle lows around the $17,500 mark in June and hasn’t been able to recover significantly.
Since hitting an all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021, the original crypto has been in a downward trend. Instead of a store-of-value asset, its price action has been akin to a high-tech U.S. equity.
ETH Market Position
Ethereum is the #1 smart contract platform in the world by number of users and dApps deployed. This huge popularity came as a double-edged sword as its proof-of-work consensus mechanism couldn’t keep up with the demand. The network often encountered congestion and gas prices went through the roof.
So, it’s understandable that investors were hoping to see ETH reach higher prices as soon as the Merge to a proof of stake network took place in September. However, price action has been struggling ever since.
ETH fell from $3,800 in January 2022 to a 2-year low of $897 in June 2022. While the price had been in an uptrend and managed to recover to around $1,800, the downfall since the Merge has been quite brutal, and ETH is now barely hanging to the $1,300 level.
What is the Future of These Cryptocurrencies?
Even though the market is in a tight spot on a macro level, these cycles in crypto have been customary in the past decade. Eventually, the market will recover and provide new opportunities.
ETH Price Prediction
Experts provide a bullish view of Ethereum in the next years. Digitalcoinprice.com sets a target of $3,100 for 2023, which would be more than double the current trading price.
Priceprediction.net has a similar view, with $2,600 per ETH token in 2023. Long-term in 2025, the predictions are even more enthusiastic, with $5,694 from Digitalcoinprice and $5,635 from Priceprediction.
BTC Price Forecast
Sources from around the internet are hoping to see BTC return into a bull market in the next year. Digitalcoinprice predicts $45,419 for 2023, while Priceprediction provides a $35,510 target for the same year.
For 2025, these websites give targets of $81,298 and $78,475 for BTC, respectively.
Who Is the Winner?
While Bitcoin and Ethereum have been correlating quite heavily in the past months, it’s no secret that ETH has outperformed BTC in the past bull market. With the switch to PoS, this trend might continue once the market recovers and provide ETH traders with a stronger profit opportunity.