The Bitcoin dominance index has collapsed by 20 percentage points since the beginning of 2021. ETH, BNB and the most speculative altcoin bets have seen their dominance increase over the same period.
Bitcoin dominance (BTC) briefly fell below 50% last week for the first time since January 2018, sending a strong signal that more speculative bets on altcoins were on the rise.
The Bitcoin Dominance Index, which measures BTC market capitalization compared to the broader cryptocurrency market, hit a low of 49.35% on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap. At the beginning of 2021, the dominance of BTC was 70.68%.
Ethereum (ETH), meanwhile, accounted for nearly 15% of the overall market at its peak on Thursday. ETH dominance has increased by almost 4 percentage points since the beginning of 2021.
ETH has outperformed BTC over the past seven days, charting an impressive 9.5% return. The second largest cryptocurrency from the market cap is down 10% from its previous value at all times, while Bitcoin has corrected over 20%.
Binance Coin (BNB) has also seen its overall market share grow steadily this year, from 0.71% on January 1st to 4.17% on April 25th. BNB is being supported by several key factors, including the increase in the adoption of the Binance platform coordinated burning of $ 600 million in value in the first quarter.
Commenting on the market shift, Meltem Demirors, chief investment officer of crypto investment manager CoinShares, said she "is seeing a lot of people pursuing returns moving further into the risk spectrum".
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies outside the top ten have seen their share of the overall market swell from less than 11% to over 18% as of January 1st.
Demirors also noted that 94 cryptocurrencies now have a market capitalization of $ 1 billion or more. At the time of writing, that figure had dropped to 87, according to CoinMarketCap. Seven additional projects were valued at $ 900 million or more.
Analysts are divided over the pace and timing of the so-called alt season, a period of the market cycle where many altcoins rise against the dollar and Bitcoin. Ben Lilly, co-founder and analyst at Jarvis Labs, told Cointelegraph last week that he does not believe now is the best time to reallocate from BTC to altcoins from a regulated risk perspective.
Meanwhile, an analysis by Filbfilb, co-founder of the Decentrader trading suite, concluded that we are now approaching the main boom period for altcoins.
The current market limit for altcoins is $ 937 billion.