Ether (ETH) has outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of twelvemonth-to-date market performance, ascent more 320% against BTC's 54% returns. Just according to Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone, Bitcoin could presently catch up to Ether'southward gains, which might even push button its per-unit of measurement toll to $100,000.

"If Bitcoin were to catch up to Ethereum's performance this twelvemonth, the No. 1 crypto's price would approach $100,000," the analyst tweeted on Aug. 9 as BTC price broke higher up $46,000.

Bitcoin performance vs. Ether performance (in 2022). Source: Bloomberg Intelligence

While McGlone did not dwell on the factors that would have Bitcoin match Ether'due south yearly gains, his earlier report on cryptocurrencies cited a few catalysts that could propel the criterion crypto'south prices to the half-dozen-figure club. The report notes:

"About fourscore% of Bitcoin and Ethereum, the majority of the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Alphabetize (BGCI) operation comes from the broader perception of the offset-born crypto as a global digital-reserve asset, plus accelerating digitization of fintech and the monetary system."

Trillions of dollars waiting on the sidelines

Bitcoin backers believe that it can compete with the U.S. dollar to get a global reserve asset. A large reason is the cryptocurrency's stock-still supply cap that, to proponents, makes it more sound coin than the greenback (the Federal Reserve printed $3.1 trillion in 2022 alone.)

As a event, Bitcoin airtight last yr 260% college, reflecting that investors treated information technology as a tool against dollar-led inflation.

Bitcoin price performance through the recent years. Source: TradingView

In a survey earlier in 2022, Goldman Sachs besides noted the pent-upward need for Bitcoin among institutional investors, including pension funds, global sovereign wealth funds and foundations. Nonetheless, even as they had trillions of dollars in reserves, accredited investors were kept from putting those funds in the Bitcoin market by the lack of clear crypto regulations.

Analysts at Autonomous Capital Management stated that a regulated Bitcoin exchange-traded fund would speed upward Bitcoin adoption among institutions. In addition, they stated that while investors care for Bitcoin as a highly volatile asset, its lack of correlation to traditional run a risk factors will be like music to their ears.

The Autonomous analysts added:

"If we were to presume that Bitcoin gets the same weighting every bit the current gold weighting in investor's portfolios, its price would be two.8x times higher or roughly $112,000."

Ethereum rivalry

Despite its adoption prospects on Wall Street, Bitcoin's potency has fallen severely after topping out at around 73% in December 2022. It at present stands at 47.17%, reflecting that traders accept shifted around their investments to other digital assets.

Ether, in particular, has become the biggest benefactor of the falling Bitcoin dominance index. Its dominance in the cryptocurrency manufacture has climbed from ten.06% in December 2022 to 20.05% at the time of writing.

Ether dominance alphabetize has near doubled in 2022. Source: TradingView

Part of the reason backside Ether'due south rising dominance originated from the explosion of nonfungible tokens (NFT), which are digital files whose originality and scarcity can be validated by a public ledger.

In addition, a boom in the decentralized finance space — consisting of lending, borrowing and other fiscal services built atop the Ethereum blockchain — has pushed the adoption of Ether among the crypto masses.

Ethereum developers are likewise taking steps to scale the blockchain. On Aug. v, Ethereum updated its software with its London hard fork in the hopes of becoming a total-fledged proof-of-pale protocol in the future.

The update also added deflationary pressures on the supply, with the EIP-1559 comeback proposal bringing a fee reduction feature. On the first day alone, EIP-1559 enabled the emptying of $ii meg worth of Ether tokens.

Equally of Aug. 9, the feature burned well-nigh $5.5 million worth of ETH, as per data fetched past the website Ultrasound Coin.

Related: Vitalik: 'More confident about the merge' following Ethereum's successful London upgrade

McGlone noted that Ether'due south past performance indicates that information technology could surpass Bitcoin in terms of market cap past 2022 or 2023. Still, the analyst maintained his $100,000 toll target for Bitcoin.

Ether'south market cap projected to match Bitcoin's past 2023 tops. Source: Bloomberg Intelligence

"Though we come across Bitcoin on that path, there appears piddling can stop the process of Ethereum flippening," he said.

To date, Ethereum has surpassed Bitcoin in terms of network transactions and total transaction fees, data from Blockchain Eye shows.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reverberate the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading motion involves risk, and yous should comport your ain research when making a decision.