- Ethereum’s dominance is fading as Galaxy Digital swaps $106.5M ETH for Solana, signaling concerns about ETH’s market outlook.
- ETH struggles with institutional outflows, price declines, and a weakening market position, while Solana gains momentum in DeFi.
Ethereum is facing a sharp decline in dominance, as Galaxy Digital has made a major portfolio adjustment—ditching a significant chunk of its ETH holdings for Solana. In the last two weeks, Galaxy moved 65,600 ETH valued at $106.5 million out of Binance, pulling in 752,240 SOL worth about $105 million instead, according to blockchain tracker Lookonchain, with data sourced from Arkham.
At present, Galaxy’s wallet reflects 55,760 ETH (roughly $90.9 million) and 171,325 SOL (around $24 million), as per Arkham. A large share of these recently acquired SOL tokens has been shuffled into anonymous wallets, indicating a long-term holding strategy or possibly further reallocation plans. The sharp pivot away from ETH highlights growing concerns around Ethereum’s short-term prospects.
ETH’s weakening has been persistent through 2025. Currently trading at $1,630, Ethereum’s dominance in the overall crypto market has dropped drastically, recently slipping below 7%—the lowest it’s ever been. Since January, ETH dominance has fallen 43%, and the token has shed 50% of its value.
Ethereum’s Troubles Deepen with Institutional Sell-Offs
This downward trajectory contrasts sharply with Bitcoin’s ability to weather the recent U.S. tariff-driven market turbulence. ETH’s performance relative to BTC has also suffered; the ETH-to-BTC price ratio is down 48.40% year-to-date, based on TradingView’s data. The disparity only fuels further bearish pressure on ETH’s market outlook.
Institutional investors aren’t sticking around either. U.S.-based Ethereum exchange-traded funds have now registered eight consecutive weeks of net outflows, with a cumulative $909 million pulled out. Confidence is slipping from Ethereum’s corner of the crypto world, both from a price perspective and from major investment channels.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) activity is also shifting away from Ethereum, with Solana emerging as a prime alternative. Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges handled only $40 billion in volume in March 2025—a stark drop from $64.7 billion in February and $82.2 billion in January, according to DefiLlama.
Solana Rises as Ethereum Awaits Redemption
Solana is rapidly climbing the ladder. Strong on-chain activity, a solid staking foundation, and an enthusiastic user base are turning attention its way. Analysts have started speculating whether Solana might even surpass Ethereum in market cap by the end of the year.
Amid these developments, Ethereum is not sitting idle. The Pectra upgrade, its most ambitious software push since March 2024’s Dencun update, is scheduled for May 7. It aims to boost the network’s performance by raising staking limits, improving rollup capabilities, and refining the user experience through structural changes like account abstraction and higher maximum blob counts.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also put forward a significant proposal recently. He suggested swapping the Ethereum Virtual Machine’s bytecode with RISC-V, an open-source architecture, to improve scalability and optimize execution. It signals that the network isn’t just reacting—it’s trying to evolve.
