According to the Bitcoin obituary tracker, mainstream media declared Bitcoin “dead” only seven times in 2023, the lowest number in the last ten years. Data obtained from the BTC 99bitcoins obituary tracker. It turned out that since 2010, Bitcoin has been declared “dead” 474 times. However, data shows that only seven “deaths” were recorded in 2023, with the latest being announced by Bitcoin bull and billionaire tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya, who said during an April 22 episode of the All-In podcast that “cryptocurrency is dead” in America”. However, Palihapitiya seemed to be saying this in the context of over-regulation. 99bitcoins said it adds Bitcoin obituaries if the media content explicitly states that BTC is or will be worthless, and only if the content was created by “an individual with a known following or a site with significant traffic.” What’s more, the site shows that more than half of this year’s obituaries were published in January – at the height of the crypto winter – and just two months after the disastrous FTX crash, when BTC struggled to break above $17,000.
Interestingly, 2017 saw the highest number of Bitcoin obituaries, with 124, despite Bitcoin hitting its all-time high that year. BTC prices rose 1,900% that year, with the asset rising to an all-time high of $20,000 in December. The third-highest number of so-called Bitcoin deaths occurred in 2021, another peak year of the cycle, when the asset surged 138% to hit an all-time high of $69,000 in November.
Well-known cryptanalyst and CFO of the ASTL investment project Konstantinas Sizovas noted the bell-shaped curve and the downward trend, commenting on these events: “In two or three cycles (each cycle is 4 years), there will be no obituaries of Bitcoin. At that time, there will be talk that BTC will die “It’s as stupid as saying that ‘air’ will fail. We’re on trend.”
Bitcoin is not the only crypto asset that is sometimes declared dead. Currently, Ethereum is not getting much love – its popularity on social networks has fallen due to high transaction fees and the decline in the price of ETH in Bitcoin. In this regard, critics appear declaring ETH dead. At the moment, the popularity of Ethereum has indeed decreased somewhat due to rising prices for BTC and SOL. Ethereum buyers have been forced to defend themselves against a wave of negativity on Crypto X after some critics noted that ETH’s price performance has recently lagged behind Bitcoin (BTC) and other high-performing altcoins. According to CoinMarketCap, the price chart of Ethereum and Bitcoin – a measure of the ratio of 1 ETH to 1 BTC – temporarily fell below 0.05 BTC on December 20, which is the lowest level in two years (since April 28, 2021). During the last bull market, the ratio peaked at 0.087 BTC on September 12, 2021, but has trended downward since then. At the beginning of 2023, this ratio was at 0.072, but has also decreased since then.
Critics on social media appear to be unhappy with Ethereum’s transaction fees, which they say have made competing networks with lower fees more attractive. Data from BitInfoCharts shows that Ethereum fees averaged around $11 on December 19, although Bitcoin transaction fees are still higher at around $32. On the other hand, according to CoinCodex, Solana’s fees are consistently less than $0.01. Even Vitalik Buterin, one of the creators of Ethereum, admitted that Ethereum will eventually “fail” unless transaction fees become cheaper, especially during bull markets.
Meanwhile, Solana (SOL) bulls were also quick to point out that SOL price has performed well relative to other cryptocurrencies, including Ether, especially over the past three months. Over the past 24 hours, SOL is up 12% to $83, according to CoinMarketCap. Other experts are pointing out that Solana is overtaking Ethereum in trading volumes across decentralized exchanges (DEXs), stablecoins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) this week on both 24-hour and seven-day intervals, and recent price action has prompted others to even speculate that Solana will one day overtake Ethereum. However, Ethereum still has the highest total value locked (TVL) on its network at $28 billion, while Solana ranks fifth in TVL with $1.15 billion, according to DefiLlama. Additionally, Ethereum’s market cap to TVL ratio (Mcap/TVL) is 9.4 compared to Solana’s 30.45. Mcap/TVL is a widely used metric to measure the intrinsic value of a blockchain. Since Ethereum’s price is lower, it can be assumed that it is undervalued (compared to Solana).
