Ether (ETH) price dropped below $2,600 on Feb. 24 and has since struggled to sustain a meaningful recovery. The latest correction toward the $2,000 level triggered over $918 million in leveraged long (bull) liquidations in ETH futures within 15 days, according to CoinGlass data.
Traders now question what needs to happen for ETH to break above $2,500.
Ether/USD (left) vs. total altcoin market cap (right). Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph
Ether has underperformed the altcoin market by 10% during this period, as shown in the chart above.
More concerningly, this decline followed a memecoin frenzy that boosted Ethereum’s main competitor, Solana (SOL). This suggests that additional factors are hampering ETH’s price, and four major issues need to be addressed before Ether can reclaim a bull market.
Ethereum’s upgrades and increased competition
For some, the upcoming Pectra upgrade on the Ethereum