Despite bitcoin’s price turmoil over the past week, Ki Young Ju, the founder and CEO of the market analytics platform CryptoQuant, believes the leading digital asset’s dominance is less likely to decline soon.
Historical data shows that alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) have always rallied when BTC retraces and seen a decline in market dominance during bull cycles.
Ju’s findings indicate that the altseason, where capital leaves BTC and flows into altcoins, may not be as close as market experts have predicted.
Bitcoin Dominance Less Likely to Fall
According to Ju, Bitcoin’s growth rate in this cycle makes it less likely for its dominance to plunge. The asset’s growth this year has been fueled by several factors, including the launch of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States and President Donald Trump’s support for the cryptocurrency during his election campaign.
Data from CoinmarketCap showed Bitcoin’s market dominance, which was 57% at the time of writing, with a slight plunge in the past week and month.
Ju noted that during bitcoin’s 37% market cap growth over the past few months, large-cap altcoins rose 16%, while cryptocurrencies with small and mid-sized market caps gained 10%. The only time small and mid-sized coins outperformed BTC was during the memecoin season in April; since then, BTC has remained the lead.
While it appears BTC is retracing as investors take profits following the coin’s latest rally, Ju insists that the nature of capital flowing into the Bitcoin network could maintain the asset’s dominance and delay altseason for some time. This BTC bull run is primarily driven by demand from spot ETFs and institutional investors, indicating a shift in capital inflows.
What is the Fate of Altcoins?
Except for Ethereum, which accounts for 12.8% of the crypto market, other cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins and memecoins, represent 30.2% of the sector.
The bull cycle of 2021 saw Bitcoin’s dominance plunge to 40%, and altcoins represented 41% of the crypto market during the altseason. This means there is still room for growth among altcoins before they can have their rally.
For altcoin market capitalizations to reach levels high enough to trigger the altseason, there has to be a significant influx of fresh capital to crypto exchanges. Unfortunately for these crypto assets, institutional investors and ETF buyers have no intention of rotating their investments from BTC to altcoins. Hence, to trigger the next altseason, altcoins must either continue relying on crypto exchange users or develop independent strategies to attract new capital.
