Ether Outperformed Bitcoin by 16 Percentage Points in the Post-ETF Week

CoinMarketCap’s archived market snapshot for January 14, 2024 showed a sharp split between the two largest non-stablecoin cryptoassets: ether was up 11.22% over seven days at $2,472.24, while bitcoin was down 4.89% at $41,796.27. The difference between those trailing returns was 16.11 percentage points, a Coinburn calculation from the dataset.

That divergence mattered because it appeared immediately after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved exchange rules for spot bitcoin exchange-traded products on January 10 and the products began trading on January 11. The headline event belonged to bitcoin, but the weekend market record showed ether—not bitcoin—carrying the stronger one-week return.

What the snapshots measured

CoinMarketCap’s January 7 snapshot listed bitcoin at $43,943.10 and ether at $2,222.87. Comparing those archived observations with January 14 produces a 4.89% decline for bitcoin and an 11.22% gain for ether, consistent with the seven-day fields displayed on the January 14 page.

The cross-rate supplies another view. Dividing the reported ether price by the reported bitcoin price gives approximately 0.05059 BTC per ETH on January 7 and 0.05915 BTC per ETH on January 14. That is a 16.93% increase in the ETH/BTC ratio, calculated from the two CoinMarketCap snapshots. The ratio does not depend on the dollar’s level, but it still inherits the aggregator’s price-selection and timestamp limitations.

The January 14 snapshot also showed that the final 24-hour leg was not a broad rally. Ether was down 4.05% over the snapshot’s trailing 24 hours and bitcoin was down 2.44%. Ether’s weekly advantage therefore survived even though both assets were lower over the shorter window. Reported 24-hour volume was $9.41 billion for ether and $17.52 billion for bitcoin; those totals measure gross aggregated trading activity, not net purchases or capital inflows.

Contemporaneous interpretation, bounded

Amber Group published a market update dated January 14 that recorded weekly ranges of $41,753 to $48,494 for bitcoin and $2,196 to $2,698 for ether. Its options commentary said implied volatility had fallen for bitcoin after the spot-product launch and characterized ether positioning as a rotation supported by speculation about a possible ether product.

That was an institutional market interpretation available on January 14, not proof of causation. The SEC had approved spot products holding bitcoin, and Chair Gary Gensler’s January 10 statement expressly said the action was confined to bitcoin and did not signal a willingness to approve listing standards for crypto-asset securities. On January 14, no spot ether product had been approved in the United States. A price divergence and options skew could show changing relative demand, but they could not establish why every participant traded.

Limits of a Sunday snapshot

Cryptoassets trade continuously across exchanges, with no consolidated tape or universal closing auction. CoinMarketCap’s historical page identifies January 14 and presents trailing 24-hour and seven-day fields, but it does not expose the exact collection timestamp on the page. Its figures are aggregated USD market observations rather than executions on one named venue. Prices, returns and volumes can differ across exchanges, quote currencies, data vendors and day boundaries.

January 14 was also a Sunday. U.S.-listed exchange-traded products did not hold a regular trading session, even though underlying crypto markets continued operating. The snapshot therefore cannot provide a same-day ETF flow, creation or redemption measure.

The defensible conclusion is narrow: by CoinMarketCap’s January 14 observation, ether had materially outperformed bitcoin over the preceding week, and a same-date institutional report independently described stronger relative interest in ether. The data captured a post-approval change in market leadership; it did not predict regulatory approval, establish a durable trend or prove that ETF speculation alone caused the move.