Could Ethereum Ever “Flip” Bitcoin? Here’s What Crypto Leaders Think

Call it an overturn, or even an upending. But most people refer to the concept of Ethereum’s market capitalization overtaking Bitcoin as “the flippening”. 

The question is, with ETH surging over $4,300 and fast approaching its all-time high of $4,878, could the flippening actually happen?

Will Ethereum Eventually Take the Crown from Bitcoin?

Ethereum’s current market cap is around $500 billion, while Bitcoin is almost five times that, at $2.3 trillion. Despite this, bullishness abounds from people like Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin these days. 

“I think we’ll see some astonishing things in the next year or so,” Lubin said on CNBC, regarding the possibility of a flippening of ETH over BTC. 

Lubin cited the growth of publicly traded crypto treasury companies as one catalyst for this potential move in his July 30 CNBC interview. Lubin’s SharpLink Gaming (NASDAQ: SBET) treasury play currently holds 521,939 ETH, worth more than $2 billion as of press time. 

Many fund managers and investment professionals aren’t so sure, however. 

“As far as the ‘flippening’, we just don’t think it will happen,” said Jeff Embry, managing partner of crypto fund Globe 3 Capital. “ETH has too high a hill to climb to surpass BTC and the drivers of what creates value for both should keep BTC in the lead.”

Many look to the ETH/BTC trading pair for some historical insight. 

In the 2017 bull run, the ETH/BTC ratio was around 0.1475 BTC per ETH. This means ETH was worth about 14.75% of BTC’s price at its peak of the ratio. 

ETH/BTC is currently at 0.03532 BTC per ETH—only 3.6% of BTC’s price. However, there is likely room for that ratio to trend up, which will likely amplify the noise of any potential flippening in the future. 

“The spread ETH-BTC is now being aggressively bought since its lows in April 2025 and I believe it has some more room to go,” said Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of crypto-focused Tellurian Capital. “This recovery has been magnified by the fact that a number of hedge funds were short the ETH-BTC spread and had to stop out of that position ahead of the large buying from new ETH treasury companies.”

Ethereum treasury companies such as Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NASDAQ: BMNR), the #1 publicly traded ETH holding company with 833,133 ETH worth $3.5B at press time, are fueling this appreciation. 

Lee recently predicted a $16,000 price point for ETH, which could bring the asset closer to its 2017 record price ratio with Bitcoin. 

Different Purpose and Supply Dynamics

Yet some of the fundamental aspects of the technology behind ETH that piques Wall Street interest might not be enough to go higher than BTC’s price.

“We would need a massively bullish case for RWAs and tokenised treasuries over the next five years plus AI, gaming, sovereign infrastructures, all running on Ethereum,” noted Chris Thomas, of multi-partner crypto advisory Lake Capital. “But even on those numbers we may only see a $30,000-$50,000 ETH price… and at that point, we could argue that Bitcoin will be up another 7-10x.”

It’s important to keep in mind that as ETH’s price is rising, it’s very possible that Bitcoin will continue a run upwards as well. Ether’s supply dynamics are different from those of Bitcoin’s renowned fixed supply.

“In terms of price per ETH, it is unlikely to pass the price per Bitcoin,” said Steve Chen, founder of blockchain startup accelerator BAIK Ventures. “Bitcoin’s total supply is capped at 21 million.  ETH does not have a hard cap of total supply, there is some burning, but the outstanding amount of ETH is a huge number.”

According to CoinGecko, the current outstanding supply of ETH is 120 million tokens. Unlike Bitcoin’s 21 million fixed circulation, Ethereum has no hard cap on its supply. 

Instead, the Ethereum network burns transaction fees, known as gas, in its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Bitcoin fees, on the other hand, are rewarded to proof-of-work miners. 

Also, the roles and purposes of BTC and ETH are clearly different, so providing an apples-to-apples comparison between the two very disparate networks is difficult. 

That being said, expect the BTC vs. ETH narrative and price wars to keep heating up. Both will continue to be in high demand as crypto regulatory winds have shifted more favorably in 2025.

“BTC has the first mover advantage and remains the primary digital gold asset,” added Tellurian Capital’s Bonnefous. “Although I expect quite a bit more of a catch-up for ether which had been oversold these last few months.”