Ethereum upgrades may not be enough to lift Ether, JPMorgan warns
Ether has continued to lag behind Bitcoin during the latest crypto market recovery, with analysts at JPMorgan saying weaker network activity and fading confidence across the altcoin market have kept institutional demand tilted toward Bitcoin.Bitcoin ETFs and CME futures positioning have recovered faster than Ether after the Iran conflict driven market selloff.JPMorgan said Ethereum upgrades over the past three years failed to generate meaningful growth in network activity.Repeated crypto hacks and weaker DeFi activity have continued to weigh on investor confidence in altcoins, according to JPMorgan. According to a report from JPMorgan led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, Bitcoin has recovered much faster than Ethereum following the recent market turbulence linked to the Iran conflict. The bank said institutional investors have rebuilt exposure to Bitcoin across both spot exchange-traded funds and CME futures markets at a pace not seen with Ether. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have already regained nearly two-thirds of the outflows recorded during the conflict-driven selloff, JPMorgan said. By comparison, spot Ether ETFs have recovered only around one-third of their earlier withdrawals, indicating weaker investor appetite for Ethereum despite the market rebound. Data from CME futures positioning painted a similar picture, the analysts noted. Institutional traders have almost fully restored their previous