- Ethereum’s dominance is rising as other altcoins continue to struggle.
- ETH is still experiencing strong downward pressure and risks a dip below $2k.
Since reaching a local high of $3.7k in early January, Ethereum [ETH] has declined significantly. After attempting a breakout from this downtrend a month ago, ETH faced resistance at $2.8k, leading to a pullback.
Despite these struggles on its price charts, CryptoOnchain has observed that ETH dominance has continued to surge.
Ethereum dominance growth continues
According to CryptoQuant, Ethereum has captured a significant share of the market based on data from January to May 2025.
This surge in ETH dominance is primarily driven by a significant drop in the volume of other altcoins.
Source: CryptoQuant
Contrary to market expectations, Ethereum’s trading did not drive the recent surge. From 2024 to 2025, ETH’s trading volume remained relatively steady, ranging between 300 trillion and 490 trillion.
In contrast, altcoin trading volume peaked at 1.5672 quadrillion in November 2024, but dropped sharply to 387.47 trillion by May 2025. The share of altcoin trades fell from over 1 quadrillion to below 400 trillion, reflecting a significant decline.
This trend suggests investors are pulling liquidity from riskier projects. Some of that capital appears to have been redirected into Ethereum, seen as a relatively safer alternative.
Source: CoinGlass
Therefore, Ethereum’s dominance is not primarily the result of its growth but rather the retreat of its competitors. Despite ETH failing to grow significantly, it remains highly favorable compared to other smaller coins.
When we look at Altcoin’s Season Index, it shows that the overall altcoin market has declined. This metric has declined from 88 to 12 between December 2024 and June 2025, signaling a weakening altcoin market.
Any impact on ETH’s price movement?
Although Ethereum dominance has surged significantly, its growth has been problematic. Since then, demand, on-chain activity have all struggled to keep up with the market.
Source: Santiment
At press time, Ethereum’s NVT ratio s surged to 1041, indicating significant network overvaluation.
This means on-chain activity is low relative to price, suggesting that current ETH prices may not be supported by organic demand.
Historically, such disconnects—where value outpaces actual network usage—often signal market tops and are followed by corrections.
If this trend continues, ETH could retrace to better align with real demand, pointing to a speculative market environment.
Despite Ethereum’s rising market dominance, long-term holders are still in the red.
Also, the MVRV Long/Short Difference remained negative, and has been so for the past four months, signaling persistent unprofitability for long-term ETH investors.
Source: Santiment
A negative value here suggests that short-term holders have higher unrealized profit than LTHS. For instance, those who acquired ETH between December 2024 and February 2025 are mostly sitting at a loss.
This implies that despite growing influence, ETH is not recording significant moves to the upside while other altcoins continue to dip. At the prevailing market conditions, ETH seems overvalued and has to retrace to meet actual demand.
If a retrace emerges, we could see ETH drop below $2k. However, if speculators continue to hold the market, Ethereum will continue with recovery and attempt to reclaim $2.5k.
