- ETH/BTC nears 0.016 BTC level, echoing 2019’s 450% rebound.
- Vitalik Buterin’s proposed overhaul sparks strongest bullish sentiment in years.
- Skeptics warn Ethereum’s PoS model worsens centralization and complexity.
Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), is once again approaching a decisive support level against Bitcoin (BTC) that, in the past, has sparked massive bullish reversals — and market analysts are paying close attention.
Currently, the ETH/BTC trading pair is trending down toward 0.016 BTC, a price point that turned around dramatically in September 2019. The pair saw a jump of well over 450% for the following 12 months, leading to a prolonged period of comparative outperformance for Ether.
ETH/BTC Repeats Familiar Bear Market Pattern
The setup is mirroring that moment in 2019 itself. While both periods feature the same set of key technical properties such as an oversold relative strength index (RSI), extended amounts spent below major moving averages, and long term downtrends, analysts also track non-technical data in other areas. ETHBTC had lost well over 90% in value from the peak to the collapse of the initial coin offering (ICO) boom in 2019.
Despite the pair falling over 80%, it is unable to reach new heights in 2025 due to an ongoing battle against some investor skepticism surrounding Ethereum’s move to PoS, a growing competitor set to boost ETH token issuance by 100X, and Bitcoin’s burgeoning position as the leading institutional crypto asset.
In an ambitious move to correct those concerns and shake Ethereum out of its recent stagnation, co-founder Vitalik Buterin unveiled a major upgrade to the network’s underlying architecture. He envisions protocol wide standards to make Ethereum easier, faster, for whoever owns one of those simple, compact nodes, to actually pay for what it is doing almost as fast as Bitcoin is doing it within the next 5 years.
ETH Nears Breakout From Bearish Parabola
One market analyst described the Buterin initiative as “the most bullish thing for ETH” and said that the proposal could be the most bull signal not just technically but fundamentally. In addition, technical indications of potential breakout.
Some refer to its maiden resistance arc, a ANTI gravitational ‘bearish parabola’ that has confiscated every attempt at a mean rally since December 2021. As of May 3, this curve is getting fatigued, and that may start to break to the upside.
Chartist Jimie noted that “We might see an end of this bearish parabola”, also remarking that if the pair fails here to break through, the dip could go all the way back to 0.016 BTC, which is a historically significant bottom.
Still, Ethereum’s future remains contentious. Bitcoin promoter and PoW parent Adam Back flatly criticised the plan and described it as doomed by Ethereum’s fundamental design flaws that can’t be remedied by incremental tweaks.
More specifically, Back claimed Ethereum’s account-based model is too complicated and Bitcoin’s unspent transaction output (UTXO) model, as it is simpler and more secure. Back said the move to PoS has not improved centralization, with ether rewards transferring to large tokenholders and power concentrated in a small group for insiders.
“At this point, just flush ETH before it hits zero and buy Bitcoin,” he bluntly stated, declaring that nothing can prevent what he believes is a fatally flawed protocol from bottoming out his profile in favor of Bitcoin. While the gap between the bulls and bears is sharp, the Ethereum market sentiment is in a nodal position. The outcome of the coming weeks and how the Buterin push to remake the network is sold by investors to the public may decide whether ETH/BTC rallies or plummets back in its long term downtrend.
