ETH/BTC Pair Plummets 35% Year-Over-Year: Is Further Weakness on the Horizon?
The persistent bearish trend of Ethereum versus Bitcoin resembles the negative pattern observed during 2024–2025, suggesting potential for an additional 40% drop.
Over the course of the last twelve months, Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, has experienced a decline exceeding 35% when measured against Bitcoin (BTC), and technical indicators suggest this bearish trajectory could continue.
Key takeaways:
- Technical analysis suggests ETH could experience an additional 40% drop as it replicates the bearish pattern from 2025.
- The increasing amount of Ether held in reserves on Binance, contrasted with declining Bitcoin reserves, strengthens the argument for continued ETH weakness.
ETH faces potential 40% drop following rejection at long-term trend line resistance
The ETH/BTC trading pair continues to trade beneath a descending trend line spanning multiple years that has consistently rejected upward price movements since 2022, including a rejection that preceded an approximately 70% price collapse observed between 2024 and 2025.
The technical landscape appears to be developing a comparable pattern once more.
Following a retest of this identical trend line in August 2025, the ETH/BTC pair encountered strong resistance near a key zone that incorporated both the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement level and the 50-month exponential moving average (50-month EMA, red).
Since that rejection, the pair has reversed direction and fallen beneath the 20-month EMA (green) support level positioned near 0.034 BTC, indicating that bearish pressure remains firmly in control of the prevailing trend.
Should this weakness continue throughout 2026, the next significant downside price target sits around 0.0176 BTC. Reaching this level would represent approximately 40% depreciation from present values and corresponds with the cycle bottom established in 2020.
Exchange reserve data reveals ETH-BTC divergence
Data from cryptocurrency exchanges indicates ongoing downside pressure for Ether remains elevated.
According to information from data analytics platform CryptoQuant, Binance—the cryptocurrency exchange with the highest trading volume globally—held 3.62 million ETH in reserves as of May, representing approximately 24.6% of the total Ether stored across all centralized exchanges.
By contrast, Bitcoin holdings on Binance have experienced a decline.
Increasing balances on exchanges typically indicate greater token availability for potential sellers, which tends to create downward price pressure when demand fails to keep pace with the expanded supply.
Conversely, declining reserve levels frequently suggest that coins are being withdrawn from exchanges and transferred to private wallets for extended holding periods.
From this perspective, the diverging reserve trends on Binance validate the wider market dynamics: Ether confronts relatively elevated available supply levels, whereas Bitcoin demonstrates indicators of reduced exchange-accessible liquidity.
The underperformance of Ethereum represents part of a larger transformation in underlying fundamentals. Over recent years, Ether has consistently trailed Bitcoin's performance partly due to the diminishing traction of Ethereum's "ultrasound money" value proposition.
Meanwhile, BTC continues to benefit from institutional accumulation spearheaded by companies like Strategy alongside its expanding presence within traditional Wall Street investment portfolios.