Ethereum’s record Q4 2025 on-chain and developer growth fails to close 1.5x gap with Bitcoin

In Q4 2025, Ethereum saw deployed contracts climb to 9.1 million and NFT volume reach $12.6 million, while weekly DApp activity surged 1,135% to $180 billion. Despite this strong on-chain and developer momentum, ETH’s price fell 45%, trades below $2k, and still lags Bitcoin by about 1.5x, with the ETH/BTC pair slipping 0.28% over the past week. Leverage-heavy positioning and weak spot demand suggest Ethereum is unlikely to repeat its Q2 2025 performance against BTC and may continue to underperform if current trends persist.