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Bitcoin Dominance Sinks Below 50% for First Time Since 2018
Bitcoin's share of the overall industry market capitalization has fallen as ether and other altcoins have surged in price.
Bitcoin (BTC) dominance, or the ratio of the largest cryptocurrency's value to the overall market capitalization of digital assets, slipped below 50% for the first time since 2018, according to the data sites CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.
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The ratio was 48% as of 15:44 coordinated universal time (11:44 a.m. ET) and came as ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain and the second-largest overall, surged to a new all-time high.
Bitcoin's market value is about $1.02 trillion, versus about $2.13 trillion for CoinGecko's universe of 6,816 digital coins. Ether's share of the market capitalization is about 14%.
Although 12-year-old bitcoin is up 88% this year, reaching an all-time high just below $65,000 earlier in April, the rally has stalled recently, and the price has since faded to about $55,000. Instead, traders have bid up prices for other cryptocurrencies, from Aave's AAVE tokens (+347% year to date) to Zcash's ZEC (+330%).
That's in addition to the well-documented rallies in ether, up 256%, and dogecoin (DOGE), which has climbed 50-fold in 2021.
The rapid price increases are drawing comparisons to the rampant speculation that took place during cryptocurrencies' last big bull run in 2017 and early 2018, punctuated by a spate of so-called initial coin offerings, or ICOs, many of which gave way to steep losses later in 2018.
"It’s a signal the market is risk-on and 'alts' are outperforming," David Grider, an analyst at FundStrat, told CoinDesk in an email. "This is the scenario we’ve been seeing lately, and it reminds us of mid-2017."
Read More: Despite Price Drop, Bitcoin's 'Fundamental Narrative Has Not Changed,' Stack Funds Says
Bradley Keoun
Bradley Keoun is CoinDesk's managing editor of tech & protocols, where he oversees a team of reporters covering blockchain technology, and previously ran the global crypto markets team. A two-time Loeb Awards finalist, he previously was chief global finance and economic correspondent for TheStreet and before that worked as an editor and reporter for Bloomberg News in New York and Mexico City, reporting on Wall Street, emerging markets and the energy industry. He started out as a police-beat reporter for the Gainesville Sun in Florida and later worked as a general-assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he double-majored in electrical engineering and classical studies as an undergraduate at Duke University and later obtained a master's in journalism from the University of Florida. He is currently based in Austin, Texas, and in his spare time plays guitar, sings in a choir and hikes in the Texas Hill Country. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.
Damanick Dantes
Damanick was a crypto market analyst at CoinDesk where he wrote the daily Market Wrap and provided technical analysis. He is a Chartered Market Technician designation holder and member of the CMT Association. Damanick is also a portfolio strategist and does not invest in digital assets.
