While many Ether proponents remain convinced that the altcoin will overthrow Bitcoin, a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency market asserts that Ether still has a long way to go.

After the Ethereum network successfully carried out the highly anticipated merge, market players were on the lookout for a massive price rally that could result in Ether overthrowing Bitcoin in the long term.

However, a prominent crypto market analyst, Benjamin Cowen, has pushed back on these sentiments. Cowen noted that the ETH/BTC pairs have steadily declined since the merge.

“The flippening narrative gets promoted a lot, and more so following the merge. But if the merge were a game changer that would lead to ETH flipping BTC, why has ETH / BTC been putting in lower highs and lower lows since the merge? Narratives are fun. Price action is king.” Cowen wrote.

While the merge has not triggered a flippening, it has enhanced Ethereum’s overall performance. The Merge was the co-joining of the Ethereum mainnet (the original execution layer of the Ethereum network) with the Beacon Chain (Proof of Stake blockchain).

The merge was essential for Ethereum to fix some of its longstanding scalability issues. After the merge, Ethereum’s carbon footprint reduced significantly, while the network sustained security using staked ETH.

Market participants are bullish on Ether 

The analyst’s comments come not long after a recent survey conducted by CryptoVantage found that 47% of Ether investors were hopeful that Ether will dethrone Bitcoin. For the survey, CryptoVantage interviewed 1,000 North Americans who also happen to have invested in Ether over the past five years.

Although there is no telling what could happen in the long term, the near-term predictions are notably bullish. Back in July, Fidelity Digital Assets rolled out its Q2 2023 Signals Report. The report highlighted a positive outlook for Ether, stating that the next 12 months are highly promising for the asset.

It is worth noting that Ether (ETH) has already seen its year-to-date gains surge by 62%, despite the constant fluctuation in price value.

At report time, Ether is trading for $1,851. The asset has sustained mild losses over the last 24 hours, although the bulls have successfully cleared out weekly losses.

On the other hand, Bitcoin is heading towards the $30,000 price mark after momentum last month. Bitcoin is now valued at a press time price of $29,410.