Another week has closed with another crypto price rally, in what has been a banner year for the market. Bitcoin’s been enjoying historic highs – though not without some of its trademark volatility – throughout 2021, and with another climb to $50,000 Friday that trend doesn’t look to be ending anytime soon.
But Bitcoin’s surge wasn’t the only story in crypto this week – along with the most ubiquitous and oldest of the coins, altcoins also enjoyed historic price jumps — Ethereum climbed to over $4,000, and a whole host of smaller currencies – like Cardano, XRP, Stellar, Uniswap and Litecoin – surged in the range of 5-10% over a 24 hour span.
It’s great news for proponents of the space, but it might not be such great news for Bitcoin itself– while its dominance remains firmly unchallenged, as competitors rise, it begs the question: just how long can Bitcoin maintain its place as leader of the pack? Or is it already losing that title?
“Bitcoin does not lead markets anymore,” he stated. “It has exhibited both poor upcapture and poor downcapture all year, meaning it doesn’t keep pace with rallies AND sells off more than other assets in downturns,” said Jeff Dorman, CIO with asset manager Arca, in a recent interview with Forbes.
To some extent, this may be a sign of the Bitcoin market beginning to mature; no longer the fresh new face on the block, investors looking for the next big thing may be looking elsewhere.
“Most investors are on the lookout for new coins that they believe will radically change the ecosystem and they want to invest in them at early stages and benefit from it, like what investors did in Bitcoin and Ether,” said Sharan Nair, Chief Business Officer at CoinSwitch Kuber, in an interview with the Economic Times. “The market seems to be bullish and, in general, we have seen such a market bringing in new crypto investors, many of whom try to invest more in new coins.”
The bigger sign of where the excitement in could simply be noted in where investments are strongest — outflows from Bitcoin continued this week, while overall inflows for altcoin challenger Cardano hit $10.1 million.
“Cardano is now just behind the major headline grabbers bitcoin and ethereum,” said deVere Group chief executive Nigel Green in an interview with Financial News London. “Cardano is on a clear upward trajectory and there’s no reason to think that this will come to a halt any time soon.”
It’s clear enough that Bitcoin’s not likely to give up its lead in overall prices anytime soon — but expect a lot of the big swings in percentages to start shifting over to the altcoin space as this continues.