‘ETH has outperformed BTC by 250% since inception’: Raoul Pal triggers debate

Real Vision’s Raoul Pal believes that altcoins with an active ecosystem of devs and apps will likely beat out Bitcoin over time.

Real Vision co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal has sparked a spirited debate after predicting that Ethereum and other coins with “network effects” will outperform Bitcoin over time.

Pal shared a chart of Ether’s price relative to BTC since Aug. 7, 2015 —  six years after Bitcoin was created — showing that “ETH has outperformed BTC by 250%.”

Fascinating to see that since inception ETH has outperformed BTC by 250%. It only fell below its initial price in BTC for the first 5 months of its existence in 2015.

Let that put rest to the idea that all other tokens trend towards zero in BTC terms. pic.twitter.com/ulCpsjG8up

— Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) April 7, 2021

According to TradingView’s Bittrex chart, ETH began trading for roughly 0.006 BTC on Aug 10, 2015. It is currently sitting at 0.0359 BTC.

Bitcoiners weren’t pleased with Pal’s interpretation of events, with Craig Wright antagonist, Arthur van Pelt, arguing Ethereum has outlived its early hype and that since the 2017 bull run “it’s down 77% and on a long term decline. Cold hard facts.”

In response, Raoul remarked “Since this halving cycle started, it’s up over 100%. Cold hard facts.”

Fund strategist and Bitcoin advocate Brad Mills took issue with the comparison itself, asserting the logic underpinning the analysis is flawed as it does not offer a comparison between the currencies since their respective beginnings.

On-chain analyst Willy Woo suggested that Ethereum’s price rise was simply the initial hype cycle playing out and that ETH has little potential for future price increases. The first four-year cycle of any coin, he explained, “is its highest climber,” adding that ETH will likely just oscillate around Bitcoin’s price from here on, and it’s time to move on from it:

“You may as well just leverage BTC now that we are in 2021 with well developed extremely liquid derivative markets.”

There’s more riding on this debate about ETH’s rise in BTC terms than just pride. In November last year What Bitcoin Did podcaster Peter McCormack challenged Pal to a bet, taking the position that BTC will be up against ETH after one year. Pal took the other side, and states ETH will rise closer to Bitcoin’s price after one year, with the loser to fly the winner over for drinks, in either London or theCaymen Islands.

Pal didn’t let the opportunity slip to also call a potential early victory:

Patience young grasshopper

— Peter McCormack (@PeterMcCormack) April 7, 2021