Ethereum processes 3x as many transactions per second and has more use cases than Bitcoin.
Yet, its market cap is 1/4 of Bitcoin's market cap.
Is that because it is considered less secure? Is ETH less well distributed than BTC? Or am I missing something completely different?
Since these smart contracts need gas fees paid in Ethereum, you'd want to have Ethereum prices be stable and ideally lower.
There's also constant inflation whereas Bitcoin will be limited to 21M cap with an estimated 3-4M Bitcoin permanently lost.
And of course, Bitcoin benefits from first mover advantage, network effects, security, more decentralization, etc.