Crypto & Web3·May 20, 2026

JPMorgan: Bitcoin Races Ahead of Ethereum

U.TodayMay 201 min readSingle source

The gist

5-point summary · 1 min

HOT Stories Of course, the broader cryptocurrency market faced severe pressure earlier this year due to inflation fears and waning risk appetite.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs successfully recovered roughly two-thirds of their prior capital outflows.
At the same time, spot Ether ETFs have managed to recoup only about one-third of their previous losses.
However, given that previous upgrades failed to trigger a material increase in onchain activity, they are unlikely to be major bullish catalysts.
The bank recently forecast that Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) could purchase an astonishing $30 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2026 alone if it maintains its current pace.

$30 billionOctober 2025

Source

In this article

JPM· JPMorgan

—

Loading…

Yahoo Finance

The October deleveraging Other insights Ether and the wider altcoin sector are struggling to keep pace with Bitcoin, according to a new report from JPMorgan.This multi-year trend of underperformance will persist unless the market sees a substantial revival in network activity, utility, and decentralized finance (DeFi) adoption.The October deleveraging Analysts led by JPMorgan managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou have stressed that Ethereum had consistently lagged behind Bitcoin in both price action and institutional capital flows since the sector-wide deleveraging event in October 2025. HOT Stories Of course, the broader cryptocurrency market faced severe pressure earlier this year due to inflation fears and waning risk appetite. However, Bitcoin's recovery has been notably stronger. One has to look at the institutional market in order to see this divergence. Spot Bitcoin ETFs successfully recovered roughly two-thirds of their prior capital outflows. At the same time, spot Ether ETFs have managed to recoup only about one-third of their previous losses. You Might Also Like Momentum traders, including crypto quant funds and commodity trading advisors (CTAs), are slightly underweight on both major assets.Ethereum is anticipating major scalability-boosting network upgrades in 2026 (such as Glamsterdam and Hegota). However, given that previous upgrades failed to trigger a material increase in onchain activity, they are unlikely to be major bullish catalysts. Other insights In a separate report, JPMorgan noted that recurring security exploits are actively preventing traditional institutions from deploying capital into decentralized finance. Localized breaches turn into widespread liquidity shocks, and risk-averse institutions choose to remain on the sidelines. JPMorgan’s research unit has also taken note of the massive corporate capital flowing directly into Bitcoin. The bank recently forecast that Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) could purchase an astonishing $30 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2026 alone if it maintains its current pace.

Integrity note · Xela does not rewrite or paraphrase article content. The excerpt above is the source publication's own words, sanitized for display. For the full piece — including any quotes, charts, or images — read it at U.Today. Xela's rewritten version is off for this story, so there's no editorial angle attached — you're getting the source's reporting unfiltered. When the rewrite is on, we add a What this means block underneath with the operator/trader takeaway.