The cryptocurrency market has returned to the red zone, with Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) both declining, but Ethereum doing somewhat worse than Bitcoin for the first time in over two months.
Indeed, Ethereum is on track to decrease compared to Bitcoin for the first time in seven weeks, based on the weekly change in the Ether-Bitcoin cross rate, as disclosed on August 18 by Christophe Barraud, chief economist, strategist, and top forecaster at Bloomberg.
However, the second-largest coin has gotten a significant boost from the anticipation around its planned Merge update, which is scheduled for mid-September and will formally sign the network’s move from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake consensus (PoS).
Despite the decline relative to BTC, Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin in recovery, as both remain highly correlated with S&P 500 stocks after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or inflation data report came in better than anticipated, according to a report published on August 17 by the on-chain social metrics platform Santiment.
The social dominance of Ethereum
In addition, the paper emphasised the so-called “Merge” social dominance, which has repeatedly recorded significant jumps, corresponding with blue chip altcoins peaking versus Ethereum in the middle of July.
In addition, the study said that these blue chips have been declining since then, with the exception of Chiliz (CHZ), which reached a new high and was topping the top 100 weekly gainers at the time of publication, as reported by Finbold.
In addition, the Santiment analysis emphasised that “most of this behaviour is likely attributable to the movement of capital from altcoins into the ETH merging speculative play.”
According to CoinMarketCap statistics, Ethereum is now trading at $1,858, which is down 0.96% on the day and 2.89% compared to seven days ago.
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