2025 has wrapped up, so it is time to visit the major themes. Bitcoin vs. Ethereum is one of the most closely watched pairs in crypto for several reasons. For one, the rise of Ethereum versus Bitcoin typically signals Bitcoin dominance falling, which leads to a rally in the “altcoins”.
Most of decentralized finance activity (DeFi) in crypto even today happens on Ethereum (although also increasingly on Solana, but it isn’t the driver of DeFi yet). This affects everything from leverage to perpetual futures and alt-rallies. So comparing and looking at BTC vs. ETH is a good perspective to understand the crypto market, especially the “risk-on” rallies inside of crypto where BTC gains get recirculated into other ecosystems. Typically, ETH leads that rally.
Year of DATs: MicroStrategy vs. Bitmine
2025 was also an important year for treasury companies, or DATs (digital asset treasury) following the model of MicroStrategy (MSTR) of increasing the metric of BTC/share held by the company. The first part of 2025 saw a big rise in the premium investors were willing to pay per share of MicroStrategy compared to the amount of Bitcoin held per share, tracking mNAV or multiple of net asset value. This reversed as Bitcoin fell towards the end of the year, with the premium also shrinking.
Because of the meteoric rise of MicroStrategy during the first half of 2025, dozens of copycats emerged, but very few with the track record prior or since to write home about. The only other asset successful in the DAT world at scale has been Ethereum, with Tom Lee creating Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) following in the footsteps of MicroStrategy. Other DATs never really took off.
Bitmine is still much smaller than MSTR, but they are both category leaders.
Price, Risk, Return view of Bitcoin vs. Ethereum in 2025
The above is a nice summary of the risk and return metrics comparing Bitcoin vs. Ethereum in 2025 from Gale Finance. We see Ethereum having sharper drawdowns and higher volatility, with lower total returns. However, because we are looking at an average Sharpe ratio, it is actually higher for Ethereum than Bitcoin, counterintuitively. Ethereum has tested investors much more than Bitcoin in 2025 regarding their patience and stomach-turning volatility.
That being said, Ethereum, unlike other previous cycle “altcoins” has pretty much held up its own against Bitcoin. This is very rare – usually, one cycle’s outperformer is a severe laggard in the next cycle, but Ethereum has carved out a niche of its own as the competitor to Bitcoin as a store of value narrative. Perhaps, it is Ethereum, not Litecoin, which should really be the silver to Bitcoin’s gold.