Crypto Market Update: Ethereum Is Leading Bitcoin - Is the Bear Market Over?
Every week this market update starts with the forest before it looks at the trees: broad markets first, then total crypto market cap, then Bitcoin, then Ethereum, then altcoins. This week the sequence told an unusually clear story — Ethereum has already broken its bear market structure on the weekly chart, while Bitcoin still hasn't. That gap is the whole update. Educational purposes only — nothing here is financial advice.
Start With The Macro, Not The Coins
The Dow sitting above 50,000 is remarkable, but the more useful macro read in this update was oil. Over the last 15 years, the average has been around $70 or lower. After peaking near $120 and pulling back toward $70, oil is back above $90. Energy drives everything, so cheaper oil is good for the entire world economy, not just risk assets.
There are reasons to expect more supply — increased US output, Venezuela, the UAE operating outside OPEC constraints — but the unresolved Iran situation keeps pressure on the price. It's a variable worth tracking even if you only trade crypto.
The Bear Market Structure Is Breaking — Unevenly
A weekly bear market is defined simply: lower highs and lower lows. Total crypto market cap has been printing exactly that pattern — high, lower high, lower high, low, lower low, lower low. This week the total market is touching the prior high but hasn't closed above it.
Bitcoin, which makes up roughly 60% of total market cap, hasn't even met that level on a weekly close yet. No surprise the Bitcoin chart looks almost identical to the total market chart — it largely is the total market.
Ethereum is the outlier. It closed above the prior swing high, then did it again, and again. On the weekly, Ethereum has invalidated the bear market pattern outright. That's what "leading" means here: if Bitcoin is 60% of the index and still below resistance, something else has to be pulling hard to get the total market to the line. That something is Ethereum and the broader alt complex. Historically, when Ethereum outperforms Bitcoin on the ETH/BTC ratio, the wider market has tended to follow — though ETFs and stablecoins may have weakened that relationship.
The Others Market And The Volume Problem
Stripping out the top 10 — which includes stablecoins, Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP — leaves the "others" market: roughly 125 of the largest altcoins. That group topped near $500 billion in 2021. Factor in five years of inflation alone and a matching high would sit closer to $600 billion. Add ETFs, corporate treasuries and institutional access that simply didn't exist in 2021, and there's a case this cycle goes well beyond the old high. Understanding how the total altcoin market cap is measured makes those comparisons far more useful.
Others has also closed above its prior high, invalidating its bear pattern, and the weekly MACD cross history on this chart has preceded nice run-ups. The problem is volume. Price moved from roughly $163 billion to $200 billion over three weeks while volume went lower. Volume should precede price. When it doesn't, a pullback shouldn't surprise anyone — a continuation without volume would be the anomaly. If you want to confirm moves properly, learning to use volume to confirm crypto breakouts is more valuable than any single indicator.
Building A Repeatable Weekly Routine
None of this works without a consistent chart setup — weekly candles, volume profile back to pre-2021, MACD on the weekly, and drawn structure levels you can re-check every Monday. Most of this update runs on standard charting tools, and setting up crypto charts and alerts in TradingView is the simplest way to replicate it so you're reading the same levels week after week instead of starting from scratch. Free tiers cover the basics; alerts on those structure lines are what save you from missing a weekly close.
If you want to go deeper — live sessions five days a week at 12pm ET, plus courses broken into beginner, intermediate and advanced tracks — you can join the Crypto Profit community here and get a one-on-one intro call to point you toward the right starting material.
---
Affiliate Disclosure: This site may contain affiliate links. If you use them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Content is for educational purposes only — not financial advice.