By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Move over crypto-USD pairs. As bitcoin and the broader market consolidate on recent gains, this may be the ideal time to focus on cross pairs, especially the ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio.
Ether has gained more than 4% over the past 24 hours, approaching $3,200, while bitcoin remains little changed above $93,000. The CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 80 indices have risen about 1%.
Ether’s momentum has lifted the ETH/BTC ratio by 4%, cementing the bullish technical breakout above the descending trendline from August highs. The pattern, discussed in the technical analysis section, indicates an impending ether bull run against BTC.
This outlook is reinforced by positive fundamental developments, including the Fusaka upgrade rolled out on Wednesday. The upgrade enhances Ethereum’s scalability by increasing blob capacity and introducing a more efficient data-availability system via PeerDAS.
The change “boosts Ethereum’s Layer-1 execution capacity through EIP-7935, which raises the protocol’s default gas limit to 60M,” CoinMetrics said. “This directly increases the number of transactions that can fit in a block, allowing for higher throughput, less congestion and cheaper gas fees.”
It’s no surprise that analysts like BRN’s Timothy Misir are calling the upgrade a tailwind for ether.
“Network growth touched 190,000 new addresses in a single day, indicating genuine organic expansion post-Fusaka,” Misir said in an email, noting the renewed aggressive ETH accumulation by wallets holding 1,000-10,000 ETH.
In other bullish news, spot ether ETFs listed in the U.S. pulled in $140 million in investors’ funds on Wednesday. XRP funds pulled in $50 million while BTC and SOL ETFs registered outflows.
PayPal’s stablecoin, PYUSD, has become the sixth-largest stablecoin, growing by over 36% in the past month.
In traditional markets, debate raged over the potential impact of rising Japanese government bond yields on risk assets. Dutch investment bank ING flagged potential for a rally in the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield. Stay alert!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today
What to Watch
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
- Crypto
- Macro
- Dec. 4, 7 a.m.: Brazil Q3 GDP Growth Rate. QoQ Est. 0.2%, YoY Est. 1.7%.
- Dec. 4, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for week ended Nov. 29 Est. 220K, Continuing Jobless Claims for week ended Nov. 22 Est. 1960K.
- Dec. 4, 12 p.m.: Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman will deliver a speech on “Bank Supervision and Regulation.”
- Dec. 4, 2-4 p.m.: U.S. SEC Investor Advisory Committee Meeting panel discussion on “Tokenization of Equities.”
- Dec. 4-5: 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit. Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting New Delhi to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
- Governance votes & calls
- Arbitrum DAO is voting to elect the final three members of the 2026 AGV Council from a pool of six candidates. Voting ends Dec. 4.
- The Rootstock Collective is voting to establish and expand the Rootstock (RSK) community in Ghana. This initiative focuses on driving adoption of the Bitcoin sidechain by onboarding new users and training local developers. Voting ends Dec. 4.
- Unlocks
- Token Launches
- Dec. 4: Alpha Partners’ crosschain bridge and decentralized exchange go live.
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
Market Movements
- BTC is down -0.44% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $93,325.36 (24hrs: +0.24%)
- ETH is up 0.93% at $3,194.78 (24hrs: +3.84%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 0.55% at 3,017.58 (24hrs: +0.95%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 1 bps at 2.85%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0078% (8.5728% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is unchanged at 98.86
- Gold futures are unchanged at $4,231.00
- Silver futures are down 1.16% at $57.94
- Nikkei 225 closed up 2.33% at 51,028.42
- Hang Seng closed up 0.68% at 25,935.90
- FTSE is unchanged at 9,692.43
- Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.39% at 5,717.01
- DJIA closed on Wednesday up 0.86% at 47,882.90
- S&P 500 closed up 0.30% at 6,849.72
- Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.17% at 23,454.09
- S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.36% at 31,160.54
- S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.2% at 3,216.12
- U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 2.1 bps at 4.079%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,864.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged2% at 25,662.25
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 47,994.00
Bitcoin Stats
- BTC Dominance: 59.33% (+0.09%)
- Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03419 (0.18%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,047 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $39.66
- Total fees: 3.56 BTC / $331,173
- CME Futures Open Interest: 122,040 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 22.2 oz.
- BTC vs gold market cap: 6.24%
Technical Analysis
- The chart shows daily swings in the ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio in candlestick format.
- The ratio has broken out of a descending channel, indicating ether outperformance ahead.
Crypto Equities
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Wednesday at $276.92 (+5.19%), +0.23% at $277.56 in pre-market
- Circle (CRCL): closed at $86.29 (+11.43%), +0.15% at $130.04
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $27.05 (+6.66%), +0.37% at $27.15
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $46.37 (+7.69%), -0.15% at $46.30
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.47 (+4.7%), +0.24% at $12.50
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $15.64 (+2.76%), +0.32% at $15.69
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.55 (+4.61%), -0.36% at $16.49
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $14.49 (+5.69%), -0.14% at $14.47
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $45.47 (+4.10%), -0.99% at $45.02
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $14.33 (-1.04%), unchanged in pre-market
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $188.39 (+3.89%), +0.21% at $188.78
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $20.44 (+2.3%)
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $10.59 (+6.22%), +0.94% at $10.69
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $2.91 (+0.52%), -5.32% at $7.66
- Lite Strategy (LITS: closed at $1.76 (-2.22%), -2.27% at $1.72
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$14.9 million
- Cumulative net flows: $57.74 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.31 million
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flows: $140.2 million
- Cumulative net flows: $13.02 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~6.24 million
Source: Farside Investors