Ethereum has been the better cryptocurrency despite Bitcoin historically performing excellently so far in June.

Ethereum Leads Bitcoin as We Enter Bullish June

Ether (ETH) has been leading Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of price performance over the past few weeks as investors prepare for the staking arrival. Historically, June has been a month of excellent price-performance or a bullish run for Bitcoin. However, ETH has been the one getting the attention this year as the network gets ready to migrate to the Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol.

Bitcoin, which remains the number one cryptocurrency, rose by more than 8% last week, ending the month of May with a 9.5% surge. The performance in May came after BTC surged by 35% in April as the cryptocurrency continues to recover from the grim outing in March.

Ether, on the other hand, rose by 16% last week and recorded a 12% gain for the month of May. In addition to the price, Ether outperformed Bitcoin in other non-price metrics too in May. To sight an example, the seven-day moving average of active ETH addresses rose to a 1-year high of 337,986 on Sunday, according to the data obtained from Glassnode. For Ether, the active addresses rose by over 10% in the last two weeks, while that of Bitcoin dipped by nearly 5%.

However, Bitcoin did not underperform in every sphere. In comparison to traditional assets like gold, Bitcoin outperformed them last month. Gold, which is the primary safe-haven asset, rallied by 2% in May, which is below the 9.5% rally recorded by Bitcoin. On the other hand, the dollar index, which tracks the value of the US dollar (USD) against other leading currencies, declined by 0.5%, while the S&P 500 only went up by 4.5% in May.

Analysts believe that both ETH and BTC could maintain their bullish trend over the short-term. Although Bitcoin has been known to rally in June, the upcoming switch to the PoS protocol by the Ethereum network could benefit ETH more and see it outperform BTC in the short-term.

The upgrade from the proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism to proof-of-stake (PoS) is a significant deal for the Ethereum network. The Ethereum 2.0 will change the network and solve some of its issues, such as scaling and more. As investors anticipate the launch of Ethereum 2.0, the buying pressure on the cryptocurrency has increased, which led to a surge in its price in May.

According to David Schwartz, a senior software engineer at Nash, it is hard to be bearish with Ethereum at the moment due to the upcoming staking on the network. He believes that more than the projected 10-30 million ETH will be staked on the network once the upgrade is complete, with Schwartz estimating the figure to be around 50 million.

Bitcoin Still Positive

Over the past eight years, Bitcoin has rallied in June in six of those years. Furthermore, BTC has also rallied in the second half of the year for six of the previous eight years. Analysts believe that macro factors are working in favor of Bitcoin at the moment and this could support its continuous price surge.

Matthew Dibb, who is the co-founder of Stack, a company that provides cryptocurrency trackers and index funds, noted that global economic tensions and uncertainties have increased over the past week, which supports Bitcoin’s narrative as an alternative investment vehicle to help people protect their wealth.