The past seven days didn’t go well for bitcoin, which is on course to end the week with minor losses of nearly 2%.

The altcoins were a lot more volatile, but the majority are deep in the red now. Solana and Tron are among the few exceptions from the larger caps.

BTC Uncertain at $67K

The business week started quite well for the primary cryptocurrency as it jumped on Monday morning to $69,500 to market its highest price tag since late July. However, the landscape changed at that point as it was mostly downhill.

BTC dumped hard by the end of the day and kept losing value until the culmination on Wednesday, when it dropped to $65,000. It bounced off on Thursday, but some FUD about Tether pushed it south once again, this time to $65,500 (on Bitstamp).

The bulls managed to intervene at this point, and propelled a price rally that drove the cryptocurrency to around $67,000 yesterday. It has recovered a bit more traction in the past 24 hours, and now sits inches above $67,000.

Consequently, bitcoin is down by 1.6% in the past week despite the massive ETF inflows, which has harmed its market cap. The metric is now down to $1.325 trillion. However, its dominance over the alts shot up to a new high since 2021 of 55.6% on CoinGecko.

SOL, TRX Gain Weekly

As most alts sit quietly on a daily scale, we will focus on their weekly performances. It was another volatile week in the market, but most larger-cap alts are about to end it in the red.

Ethereum has lost 6% of its value within this timeframe and now struggles below $2,500. Toncoin (-6%), Avalanche (-8%), and Shiba Inu (-8.5%) are deep in the red as well.

The situation with Polkadot, NEAR, SUI, LTC, APT, FET, PEPE, IMX, TAO, and STX is even more painful, with losses of up to 15%.

The two larger-cap alts that have clearly defied this trend are Solana and Tron. SOL has gained 8.5% weekly and sits above $170, while TRX is north of $0.166 after a 6% surge.

The total crypto market cap, though, has seen over $60 billion gone since last Sunday and is below $2.390 trillion on CG.

The spot Bitcoin ETFs enjoyed another week of substantial inflows, with almost $1 billion entering the funds in the past five trading days.

The same cannot be said about their Ethereum counterparts, which actually ended the week with minor losses.

$1B Enters BTC ETFs Weekly

CryptoPotato reported last weekend that the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs had registered their best weekly performances since mid-March by attracting more than $2 billion in net inflows. This became the catalyst for an impressive BTC rally that drove the asset from $62,500 that Monday to $69,000 at the end of the trading week (Friday).

The funds’ notable streak continued last Monday (October 21), with $294.3 million poured in. However, it was broken on Tuesday, with $79.1 million in net inflows, which became the first negative day since October 10.

Flows got back on track on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, with net inflows of $192.4 million, $188 million, and a whopping $402 million, respectively. Thus, the overall numbers for the week shot up to $997.6 million.

BlackRock’s IBIT was at the forefront, by attracting $329 million on Monday, $43 million on Tuesday, $317.5 million on Wednesday, $165.5 million on Thursday, and $292 million on Friday. The largest spot Bitcoin ETF saw overall net inflows worth $1,147 billion. This means in reality that the rest of the funds ended the week in the red.

However, BTC’s price actions were quite underwhelming during the week, with the asset peaking on Monday at $$69,500 but later dumped to as low as $65,000 on Wednesday. Nevertheless, it trades at $67,000 now, down 1.7% weekly.

ETH ETFs See Little Interest

While the spot BTC ETFs continue to gain investors’ attention, the Ethereum funds are yet to be considered a proper investment destination. The past trading week went quite similar to most of the previous ones, with net outflows of $20.8 million on Monday and $19.2 million on Friday.

The minor net inflows of $11.9 million on Tuesday, $1.2 million on Wednesday, and $2.3 million on Thursday failed to offset the losses at the start and end of the business week. As such, the spot Ethereum ETFs finished the week in the red, with $24.6 million in net outflows.

ETH’s price has tumbled within the past seven days. It’s down by over 6% within this timeframe, and now struggles below $2,500.

Bitcoin has assumed its biggest price lead in recent history over the altcoin ecosystem, leaving Ethereum – its perennial number 2 – in the dust.

The market capitalization of the OG crypto is now over $1 trillion greater than its runner-up, which has hit its lowest price point against its senior since early 2021.

Bitcoin’s Trillion Dollar Lead

According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin traded for $68,180 on Thursday, with a market cap of $1.34 trillion. Ethereum, by contrast, traded at $2530, with a market cap of $305 billion.

That leaves the ETH/BTC ratio at just 0.037, a low last seen in April 2021 following Ethereum’s meteoric rise over the previous 12 months. During the previous bull market, Ethereum followed the same general price behavior of the other major altcoins: when Bitcoin pumped, Ethereum pumped higher.

That’s not the case this time around. Since Ethereum’s highly anticipated Merge upgrade in September 2022, the top smart contract platform has lost over 50% of its value against BTC – despite the entire crypto market rallying in dollar terms since that time.

Over the last two years, several of crypto’s most bullish catalysts have been Bitcoin-centric. In March 2023, Bitcoin’s reputation as “digital gold” encouraged investors to come flooding into it as several U.S. banks collapsed. Later on, Bitcoin rallied for several months on excitement for Bitcoin spot ETF approvals, and again in 2024 following the ETF’s monumental success.

During this time, Bitcoin dominance has reclaimed multi-year highs, with the asset now worth 59% of the entire crypto market, according to TradingView.

Ethereum’s Lackluster Performance

Unlike Bitcoin ETFs, which have absorbed over $20 billion in net flows since launch, the Ethereum spot ETFs that went live in July have still seen net negative flows since that time, due to losses from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE).

According to CryptoQuant, declines in the Coinbase Premium Index, suggest that institutional investors could be reducing their exposure to ETH.

Ethereum bulls online remain defiant, in the face of underperformance, however. Ethereum educator Anthony Sassal argued Wednesday that Ethereum’s L2s are dismantling any existing FUD around Ethereum being a slow and expensive network, and the network’s current bears are mere “bandwagoners.”

“The only thing ETH lacks right now is confidence – but that can change overnight,” added Bankless podcast host Ryan Sean Adams on Wednesday.