BlockBeats News, May 15th, JPMorgan Chase analysts pointed out in a recent report that despite a overall market recovery after the Iran conflict, Ethereum and other altcoins continue to underperform Bitcoin. The analyst team led by Managing Director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou stated that this trend, which began in 2023, is "unlikely to change unless we see meaningful improvements in network activity, DeFi, and real-world applications."

The analysts noted that since the conflict-induced market sell-off, Bitcoin has shown a stronger recovery in spot ETF inflows and institutional futures positions compared to Ethereum. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have regained about two-thirds of their outflows, while spot Ethereum ETFs have only recovered about one-third. CME futures positions also indicate that institutional investors are more aggressively rebuilding their Bitcoin exposure than Ethereum.

Regarding the upcoming Ethereum upgrades (Glamsterdam and Hegota), analysts questioned whether they are sufficient to improve ETH's relative performance. Upgrades in the past three years have primarily reduced Layer 2 transaction costs, weakening Ethereum's fee generation and token burn mechanism, leading to accelerated supply growth and diminished price support. It remains to be seen whether the new upgrades can generate enough new demand and network activity.

As for altcoins, analysts believe that since 2023, weak liquidity conditions, low market depth and breadth, limited growth in DeFi activity, and recurring hacks and security incidents have collectively eroded market confidence and hindered new capital deployment.