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Ether rallied 70% in the third quarter on order books that barely grew
Ether's order-book depth slid to 35-45% of bitcoin's in the third quarter, CoinGecko found, while its price rose 70%. The slide came mainly from bitcoin's book growing by about half while ether's stayed near $13 million to $14 million.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- A year earlier, in the same July-to-September window, ether's depth had been at least 60% of bitcoin's, a fall CoinGecko called stark.
- SOL's depth within 2% of the price fell from about $28 million a side last year to around $20 million this year.
- XRP held steady at about $30 million of total depth, with close to $18 million of bids against $14 million of asks.
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Why it matters
- cost An ether order above about $14 million pushes the price past 0.15%, while bitcoin's book takes 2.2 to 2.9 times that first, so large ether trades pay more in price impact.
- contradiction CoinGecko's "stark drop" is a ratio; in dollars ether's book held roughly flat, so the slide mostly measures new capital committed to bitcoin's book.
- decision Desks that slice orders across venues have to size ether tickets against a book a third to a half as deep as bitcoin's, more so when volatility widens spreads.
CoinGecko called the slide "a stark drop from last year's figures" [4], and as a ratio it is. Run the dollars backward and ether's book looks close to where it was a year ago. Crypto Briefing reports that bitcoin's median depth at about 0.15% from the mid-price is roughly 50% above its 2025 level [12]. Dividing by 1.5 puts last year's bitcoin book near $19 million of bids and $25 million of asks [1]. Ether at 60% of that comes to roughly $12 million to $15 million a side [2], against the $13 million to $14 million CoinGecko measured this quarter [6]. Crypto Briefing reached the same result by another route, writing that bitcoin's book got substantially better while ether's liquidity "remained roughly flat in absolute terms" [13].
CoinGecko's range also fits a per-side comparison. Thirteen million dollars is 45% of bitcoin's $29 million of bids and 35% of its $37 million of asks [3].
The cost falls on size. Ether's $13 million to $14 million is roughly what it takes to move the price 0.15% [6]. A larger order eats through that band and pushes the price further [5]. Bitcoin's book takes about 2.2 to 2.9 times as much before the same move [4]. Smaller orders are a different matter. CoinGecko said ether remains fairly liquid within 0.15% of the market price, with most exchanges keeping more than $1 million of depth on each side [7].
The money in resting orders went to bitcoin this year and stayed flat in ether, through a quarter in which ether rose 70% and bitcoin 42% [1][13]. CoinDesk wrote that the data undercuts the idea that rising prices pull in more traders and deeper books [8]. Crypto Briefing calls institutional interest through spot exchange-traded products "one plausible driver" of bitcoin's deeper book. It adds that ether has not drawn the same order-book commitment despite its own spot ETF approvals [14].
CoinGecko's figures on the other large tokens tie depth to trading activity more than to size. XRP's market cap is about 40% larger than SOL's, yet it has less depth within 2% of the price. CoinGecko said that is because SOL trades 25% more on an average day [11]. SOL's own book at that distance still shrank by about 29% from last year [5].
I think the 35% to 45% ratio [2] overstates how far ether's market fell and understates how far bitcoin's improved. Two readings fit the same numbers. In one, resting orders lag the price and ether's book fills in if the rally holds. In the other, Crypto Briefing's, the ETF channel deepened bitcoin's book specifically and the gap persists [14]. The case against my view is that a book which stayed flat through a 70% rally is thin where a seller feels it, since a large sell order eats through it as fast as a large buy [1][5]. The flat-book reading is wrong if ether's per-side depth a year ago sat well above $15 million [2].
What to watch
- CoinGecko's next quarterly read of ether's depth within 0.15%: a per-side figure above $14 million would favour the view that resting orders were lagging the price.
- Whether bitcoin's $29 million of bids and $37 million of asks keep growing; a pause would let ether's ratio recover with no new ether depth at all.
- SOL's 2% depth against the roughly $20 million a side measured this year, as a check on whether thinning is spreading beyond ether.