Bitcoin, Solana Hit New Cycle Highs Against Ether as Trump Edges Closer to U.S. Presidency

Election 2024 coverage presented by
Bitcoin (BTC) surged to an all-time high above $75,000 as Republican Donald Trump looked set to clinch the U.S. presidency. It was recently trading around $74,000 on major crypto exchanges.
The election result was the news bitcoin needed to break through March’s record, and the U.S. market’s opening could propel the largest token by market cap to even greater heights.
Crypto was one of the biggest winning industries on the Trump triumph, with total market capitalization hitting $2.45 trillion, the highest since June, according to the TradingView metric TOTAL.
The widely watched ratio tracking the relative price strength of ether (ETH) against bitcoin dropped to its lowest level since April 2021, suggesting a fallout in investor demand for the world’s second-largest token.
The ether-bitcoin trading pair fell under 0.035 early Wednesday, extending year-to-date losses to more than 34%. Although colloquially called a ratio, ETH/BTC is simply the trading pair of ether against bitcoin on crypto exchanges, which attracts hundreds of millions in daily volumes.
An increase indicates that ether is outperforming bitcoin and vice versa. When the price rises, traders consider a preference for ETH beneficial for riskier assets and Ethereum ecosystem bets. A slide indicates a preference for Bitcoin and blockchains other than Ethereum.
Over the past five years, the ratio has risen from 0.02 to a peak of above 0.08 in early 2022, meaning ETH quadrupled in value relative to BTC at the time. Since then, it’s been on decline. Even as BTC set a lifetime high, ether has yet to break through its high from 2021 and is down 46% from its peak.
Year-to-date, bitcoin has returned over 75% to investors, while ether holders have gained just over 14%, according to MarketWatch data.
In addition, bitcoin’s market cap approached $1.5 trillion at the high and continues to widen and outperform ether. The spread between bitcoin and ether’s market cap hit a new high of $1.16 trillion, which coincided with the ETH/BTC ratio continuing to make new lows.
Solana (SOL) also flexed its muscles against ether. The token is up 10% in the past 24 hours, and also made new cycle highs against ether at 0.072. The Solana market cap dominance approached 3.70%, though it has yet to break into new all-time highs.
Bitcoin has been climbing higher throughout September, October and into November. CoinDesk research has observed a lot of profit-taking over the past month. As bitcoin made new all-time highs, CoinDesk observed a notable amount of profit-taking, $1.5 billion worth, which coincided with bitcoin’s slight pullback from all-time highs.
Edited by Sheldon Reback.
Disclosure
Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information have been updated.CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of the Bullish group, which owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish group equity-based compensation. Bullish was incubated by technology investor Block.one.
As the senior analyst at CoinDesk, James specializes in Bitcoin and the macro environment. Previously, his role as a research analyst at Swiss hedge fund Saidler & Co. introduced him to on-chain analytics. He monitors ETFs, spot and futures volumes, and flows to understand Bitcoin.
Shaurya is the Deputy Managing Editor for the Data & Tokens team, focusing on decentralized finance, markets, on-chain data, and governance across all major and minor blockchains.