Ethereum did not lose more than Bitcoin in 2026 simply because “risk-off hits the riskier asset.” That cliché is the lazy answer, and it misses the mechanism that actually mattered. ETH fell roughly 32% year-to-date against Bitcoin’s roughly 11% decline, and the ETH/BTC ratio sank to 0.027 on May 21, 2026 — its lowest of the year and a 10-month low, according to CoinDesk market data. The deeper reason is structural: Ethereum’s own success at scaling pushed activity and fees onto Layer 2 networks, draining the mainnet fee-burn that was supposed to make ETH a value-accrual asset — while Bitcoin’s “do-nothing” ... (full story)