The correlation between Bitcoin and Ethereum has drastically decreased from 0.63 on January 1st to 0.05 as of May 22, 2025, indicating a significant divergence between the two cryptocurrencies.
This deviation suggests that Ethereum is now more influenced by internal factors like protocol upgrades, regulations, and DeFi trends rather than being closely tied to Bitcoin's movements.
While Bitcoin has seen growth in 2025, Ethereum and its Layer 2 ecosystem have either underperformed or remained stagnant, leading to investor uncertainty and concerns about Ethereum's future performance.
The breakdown in correlation could impact retail investors and ecosystem developers, potentially hindering confidence and adoption of Ethereum and shifting capital flows more towards Bitcoin-centric strategies.