Ethereum vs Bitcoin: the difference, with live numbers

What is the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum?

Bitcoin is a payment network with a fixed supply cap of 21 million coins; most holders treat it as a store of value. Ethereum is a platform for smart contracts, where apps, stablecoins and tokens run, and ETH pays for that computation.

For a trader the practical difference is behavior: ETH usually swings more than BTC and reacts to activity on its own network, while BTC reacts more to macro news and fund flows.

Bitcoin vs Ethereum: the numbers

Key differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum

• Supply: BTC is capped at 21 million; ETH has no hard cap, and part of its fees is burned.
• Consensus: miners secure Bitcoin's chain through proof of work; Ethereum's validators stake ETH instead.
• Price drivers: BTC on macro and fund flows; ETH also on network usage and upgrades.
• On BRVX: BTC fee 0.1%, ETH fee 0.08%; funding 0.0205% / 0.0171% per 1h vs 0.016% / 0.0103% per 1h, and long and short rates can differ.

Bitcoin: pros and cons

• Pros: Highest leverage cap on BRVX (150x).
• Pros: The deepest and most watched crypto market.
• Cons: Fee on BRVX is higher than on most markets (0.1%).
• Cons: Big macro days move it sharply.

Ethereum: pros and cons

• Pros: More movement per day than BTC in most months.
• Pros: Its own catalysts: upgrades, network activity.
• Cons: Falls harder than BTC in crypto sell-offs.
• Cons: Lower leverage cap than BTC on BRVX.

Ethereum vs Bitcoin: when to pick which

A view on crypto as a whole is usually expressed in Bitcoin. A view that smart-contract activity will outperform is an Ethereum trade, or long ETH and short BTC.

The ETH/BTC relationship is its own trade: when the correlation is high, the pair isolates relative strength.

Bitcoin vs Ethereum: where each network came from

Bitcoin came first. A person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper in 2008, and the network went live in January 2009. The goal was narrow: send value from one person to another without a bank in the middle.

Ethereum came later. Vitalik Buterin described it in 2013, and the network launched in July 2015. The goal was wider: a shared computer that anyone can program. Developers write smart contracts, and these contracts run on the network without a central operator.

This difference in purpose explains most of what follows. Bitcoin changes slowly on purpose, because its users value stable rules. Ethereum changes more often, because its users want new features.

How BTC and ETH supply works, in plain words

New bitcoin goes to miners as a reward for adding blocks. Every 210,000 blocks, about once every four years, this reward is cut in half. This is the halving. The last bitcoin is expected around the year 2140.

New ETH goes to validators as a reward for securing the network. At the same time, since an upgrade in August 2021, a part of every transaction fee is destroyed, or burned. So the ETH supply depends on two forces: how much is issued and how much is burned.

When the network is busy, more ETH is burned, and the supply can shrink. When it is quiet, issuance is larger than the burn, and the supply grows slowly. Bitcoin's schedule is known years ahead. Ethereum's supply changes with usage.

What moves the Bitcoin price and the Ethereum price

Both coins react to the same big forces: interest rates, the US dollar, risk appetite in stock markets and news about crypto rules. On top of that, each one has its own drivers.

• Spot funds: US spot bitcoin ETFs started trading in January 2024, and spot ether ETFs in July 2024. Money flowing into or out of these funds is now a daily topic for both.
• Halving cycle: many traders watch the four-year bitcoin halving schedule. Past cycles are history, not a rule, and they do not tell you what comes next.
• Network upgrades: Ethereum ships large upgrades that change fees, speed or supply. The Merge in September 2022 moved it from mining to staking.
• Staking: holders can lock ETH to help secure the network and earn rewards. Changes in staking demand and rules can affect ETH but have no direct effect on BTC.
• Network activity: demand for block space on Ethereum, from stablecoins, apps and layer-2 networks, feeds into fees and the burn.

How Bitcoin and Ethereum behaved in past crypto sell-offs

In the large crypto bear markets, such as 2018 and 2022, and in sharp crashes such as March 2020, both coins fell together. In most of these periods ETH fell further than BTC in percentage terms.

One common reason: in stress, traders often move from smaller and riskier coins toward the largest one, or out of crypto entirely. Bitcoin tends to be the last stop inside crypto, so it often loses less.

In strong markets ETH has at times risen faster. None of this is sure to repeat, but it shows why many traders see ETH as the higher-beta coin.

Specific risks of each network

Beyond price risk, the two networks face different kinds of risk.

• Bitcoin: a large share of its value rests on one idea, digital scarcity. A change in how big investors or regulators see that idea can hit the price fast.
• Bitcoin: as the block reward shrinks, miners will depend more on fees over time. How this works out in the long run is still an open question.
• Ethereum: it competes with other smart-contract networks for users and apps. Losing share would hit demand for ETH.
• Ethereum: more activity now happens on layer-2 networks. This can lower fees paid on the main chain and reduce the burn.
• Ethereum: frequent upgrades bring new features but also the risk of bugs, and smart contracts on the network can be hacked.
• Both: crypto rules change by country, and a big exchange failure can hit the whole market.

The ETH/BTC ratio: trading Ethereum vs Bitcoin as a pair

The ETH/BTC ratio is the price of one ETH measured in bitcoin. It rises when ETH does better than BTC and falls when ETH does worse, whatever the dollar price of each coin does.

Some traders use this ratio to trade relative strength. Long ETH and short BTC of the same dollar size is a bet that ETH will do better than BTC. The reverse position is a bet on BTC. If the whole market falls, the two legs partly offset each other.

On BRVX this means one position in ETH/USDT and one in BTC/USDT. Each leg has its own leverage cap (100x and 150x), fee and funding rate, and funding on both legs adds to the cost of holding the pair. The offset is not perfect: when correlation drops, both legs can lose at once. Leverage makes losses larger, and you can lose your full margin.

Methodology: Bitcoin vs Ethereum on BRVX

30 days of BRVX closes for BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT, ending 2026-10-13, feed the volatility and correlation above; leverage, fees and funding read from the live tariff.