In a report published on Thursday, JPMorgan analysts remarked that despite the recovery in the broader crypto market, the top altcoin like Ether (ETH) and other altcoins have continued to underperform Bitcoin (BTC).
ETH and other altcoins continue to underperform BTC
Ethereum blockchain’s native coin ETH and other altcoins like Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT), and Cardano (ADA) continue to underperform BTC, despite the slight uptick in the crypto market following the Iran conflict and the passing of the CLARITY Act.
In their report, JPMorgan analysts noted that ETH’s underperformance against BTC started back in 2023. However, this is unlikely to change anytime soon unless there are any meaningful improvements in the Ethereum network activity, decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, and other real-world applications.
The analysts noted that since the market sell-off due to the Iran conflict, BTC has recovered more strongly compared to ETH across both exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows and institutional futures positioning.
Specifically, BTC-tied ETFs have recovered approximately two-thirds of their previous outflows compared to ETH-based ETFs, which have recovered only one-third.
Data from SoSoValue, shows that since March 2026, BTC ETFs have not had a single month with net negative capital flows. Meanwhile, in the same duration, ETH ETFs have had 2 out of three months in the red.
Both XRP and SOL-based ETFs continue to post positive net capital flows. While spot XRP ETFs have recorded $115M in net capital inflows, SOL-based ETFs have attracted around $173M in inflows.
Ethereum suffers from network adoption problems
JPMorgan highlighted Ethereum’s several exploits over the past few years, especially in the DeFi ecosystem, as a major obstacle hindering its adoption. They added that recent Ethereum upgrades have failed to increase network activity.
That said, Ethereum’s upcoming protocol-level upgrades – Glamsterdam and Hegota – are likely to improve the blockchain’s scalability by increasing network throughput. However, the question remains whether these upgrades will generate enough demand for the Ether coin.
Despite the question mark over ETH’s demand, institutions appear confident in the cryptocurrency for the long-term. On May 4, Tom Lee’s Bitmine added another 10,000 ETH to its balance sheet.