ETH/BTC traded around 0.075 in early 2024, hit 0.060 by mid-2025, and currently prints near 0.045. The underperformance has been one of the clearest cross-crypto trends and one of the least-discussed in mainstream coverage. The driver is a structural reshuffling of where transaction-fee revenue accrues in the L1 ecosystem.
What changed for Ethereum
The EIP-4844 'proto-danksharding' upgrade in March 2024 dropped L2 data-availability costs by an order of magnitude. The intended effect — making L2s cheap enough for mainstream usage — worked. The unintended effect was that L1 ETH gas-fee revenue collapsed because user activity migrated to L2s that pay much less for blob space than the equivalent L1 transaction would have paid in gas.
What changed for Solana
Solana absorbed a disproportionate share of speculative meme-coin and high-frequency on-chain activity through 2024-2025. Fee revenue surged, validator economics improved, and the network's narrative shifted from 'cheap-but-unstable' to 'high-throughput L1'. The ETH/SOL fee-revenue gap closed sharply.
What this implies for the ratio
- If ETH L1 burn from EIP-1559 remains structurally lower, the deflationary narrative for ETH weakens.
- If L2 economics route value back to ETH stakers via sequencer fees being shared, the gap could partially heal.
- If Solana sustains its activity share, the ETH/BTC under-performance has further to run.
- If a new L1 thesis emerges (modular, parallel-EVM, etc.), the next leg may not be ETH or SOL.