Bitcoin Loses Ground As Ethereum Takes The Lead In This Major Metric

Despite the ongoing bearish action of the market, Ethereum is showing signs of strength in some areas. In a significant landmark, the leading altcoin has surpassed Bitcoin, the largest digital asset, in a key metric that has defined industry strength.

Ethereum Is Dominating An Important Metric

A recent report from Leon Waidmann, a market expert and head of On-Chain Foundation, reveals that Ethereum is dominating a crucial metric over Bitcoin. The recent flip highlights ETH’s growing momentum, probably fueled by its maturing ecosystem, rising institutional attention, and increasing network activity.

According to the market expert, Ethereum has overtaken Bitcoin in one of the most closely watched adoption metrics in the sector: the share of total supply held by Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs). As more corporate treasuries, investment companies, and blockchain-native businesses choose to retain ETH rather than BTC, the market is starting to reflect a new narrative.

Data shows that ETH treasury companies currently hold 4.3% of the total supply, which is higher than that of BTC at 3.6%. ETH’s surpassing BTC in this metric underscores a growing moment where the foundational role of Ethereum in the cryptocurrency ecosystem is translating into real, quantifiable institutional preference.

In the expert’s view, the surprising flip is completely logical. This is because ETH has more stakeholders with actual operational demands compared to Bitcoin. These include layer 2s, DeFi protocols, DAOs, Foundations, treasury companies, government experimenting with on-chain infrastructure, and countless web3 projects being built on Ethereum. Should this current trend continue to expand, Waidmann also foresees major stablecoin issuers showing interest in holding a strategic stake in the blockchain. 

Engagement Across The Leading Blockchain Is Decreasing

Since the recent pullback in ETH’s price, there has been a steady decline in activity across the network, an uncommon change for an ecosystem that usually leads the market in long-term activity. Waidmann reported that the weekly active wallet addresses in the ETH ecosystem have cooled down after months of heightened engagement.

As seen on the Ethereum Weekly Engagement chart, the number of active ETH wallet addresses is at over 8.2 million, falling from a peak of 20 million in June 2025. This decrease indicates a brief slowdown in user engagement with DeFi, NFTs, and on-chain transactions.

Presently, activity across the network has declined by more than 60%, and layer 2 interaction continues to hold. However, the overall usage of the ecosystem is clearly in a downward trend. Waidmann stated that this sharp drop is probably related to a cooling down in airdrop-farming activities throughout Layer 2s.

A significant portion of ETH is currently being withdrawn from crypto exchanges, signaling renewed conviction in the altcoin’s price prospects. ETH is being accumulated at a substantial rate. Over the past 30 days, 700,000 ETH have been moved out of exchanges. Merlijn The Trader noted that this kind of supply shock never appears to be bullish until the chart catches up.