Ethereum Outperforms Bitcoin: Is The Altcoin Season Officially On?

Ethereum (ETH) continues to absorb Bitcoin (BTC) selling pressure in November, looking at price action when writing on November 24. In the daily chart, ETH bulls have the upper hand, adding roughly 9% versus BTC from October lows. 

ETH buyers are firm, with price action still confined inside the conspicuous bullish engulfing bar of November 9. Despite bears forcing prices lower in the second week of November, the failure of BTC bulls to reverse all losses suggests that ETH buyers are still in command.

If anything, prices may rise in the days ahead, reversing losses of the better part of 2022 when Bitcoin, buoyed by a crash in the altcoin scene, forced capital to the world’s most valuable currency. 

With Ethereum being resilient, reading from its performance in the ETH/BTC chart, hints suggest that the altcoin season could be in the early stages. Should that be the case, it will be a reprieve for ETH and other altcoins, including Cardano (ADA). 

Following the dip in 2022, most altcoins capitulated, with most falling by over 80% from 2021 peaks as the crypto winter progressed, freezing gains. The situation took a turn south in 2023 when regulators continued with their enforcement actions against CeFi facilitators, mostly exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

Their decision negatively impacted liquidity, as evidenced in other trending altcoins like Solana (SOL). ETH remains relatively firm at spot rates versus BTC, extending gains in late November. This could indicate that demand is beginning to pivot toward altcoins, with ETH, the most liquid of them all, leading the way.

Since other altcoins have relatively thinner liquidity, they tend to recover faster but generally align with ETH. If the ETH revival is sustained, reading from the candlestick arrangement in the daily chart, the leg up might also be accelerated by several macro tailwinds.

In November, BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers, filed for a spot Ethereum ETF. It comes when the broader crypto market expects the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve the first spot Bitcoin ETF in the country. This application signals that BlackRock is confident about Ethereum’s investment products. 

Additionally, the on-chain analytics platform, Token Terminal, recently issued a bold report forecasting ETH to reach $36,800 by 2030. Token Terminal expects Ethereum to process over $14 trillion of the finance industry’s value in the next seven years.

Ethereum would likely dominate at this pace, driven by sharp growth in decentralized finance (DeFi) and other crypto sub-sectors.