Today’s Ethereum-Bitcoin (ETH/BTC) trading pair slid below 0.04, a level last seen in April 2021. The declining ETH/BTC ratio could have multiple implications for the wider altcoin market. Altcoins Might Suffer Due To Weak Ethereum One of the key indicators to gauge the resiliency of the altcoin market is the ETH/BTC ratio. The ratio essentially tracks the relative price strength of Ethereum against Bitcoin and is widely considered a metric that could indicate the future potential price action of altcoins. As of September 16, 2024, the ETH/BTC ratio sits at 0.039, a level it last touched 3 years ago in April 2021. In fact, after hitting a high of 0.088 in December 2021, the ETH/BTC ratio has been on a long-lasting decline, barring the occasional dead cat bounce, before further eroding in value. Related Reading: Ethereum Price Nosedives Over 5%, Pressure Mounts on Bulls Regarding altcoin price action, a surging ETH/BTC ratio indicates that Ethereum is performing well against Bitcoin. Conversely, a declining ratio suggests that Bitcoin outperforms Ethereum and other altcoins, which could trigger a shift in confidence away from Ethereum toward Bitcoin. As a result, the wider crypto market might witness a sell-off in altcoins as capital seeks more stable and better-performing assets. Currently, Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D) sits at 57.78%, and it can be observed that the metric has been on a steady uptrend since November 2022. An increase in BTC.D further solidifies a weakening altcoin market, hinting that liquidity is exiting small-cap tokens, which might lead to volatile price action and quick price drawdowns. It’s worth highlighting that the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval of Ethereum exchange-traded-funds (ETFs) didn’t quite turn out to be as significant an event for ETH price as it did for BTC. Data from crypto ETF tracker SoSoValue shows that the cumulative net outflow for US Ethereum ETFs is $581 million, while the net inflow for US Bitcoin ETFs is $17.3 billion. Can Ethereum Price Change Its Momentum? Ethereum is exchanging hands at $2,282, a price level it last touched in January 2024. Notably, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap briefly touched the $3,900 mark, before losing all its gains. Most recently, it was reported that 112,000 ETH was moved to crypto exchanges in one day, suggesting that investors might not be too keen on holding ETH while its price relative to Bitcoin weakens. Related Reading: Ethereum (ETH) Triangle Formation Hints At A Double Bottom: Breakout and New ATH? Some experts opine that now might be a good time to convert BTC holdings to ETH as they see a potential 180% surge in the battered ETH/BTC ratio. The continual selling pressure on Ethereum has also moved ETH to oversold territory, giving hope to ETH holders that the digital asset has likely bottomed and might soon see a strong price recovery. Featured image from Unsplash, Charts from Tradingview.com
With only a few weeks before Q4 begins, investors and market watchers remain vigilant of the market’s performance. Many expect the next quarter will kickstart the rally’s second leg up, suggesting that most altcoins will explode in the coming months. Several analysts are bullish about the upcoming performances, hinting that the time to accumulate these cryptocurrencies is near its end and that the alt season is near. Related Reading: Crypto Investor Loses $16 Million Amid Friend.tech’s Controversy And Token Crash Investors’ Last Call Before The Altseason Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have taken a hit throughout Q3’s market retraces. Since July 1, the flagship cryptocurrency’s price fell more than 10%, while the “King of altcoins” plunged by over 30%. Nonetheless, several altcoins have led the market bounces amid the volatility, displaying a remarkable performance during the shakeouts. Many of the alts have outperformed their BTC pairs, as crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe stated. Per the post, many technical indicators show that “the Bitcoin pairs of many of the altcoins have been crawling up.” The analyst also considers that BTC and alts have bottomed out and that a market’s next moves will “be great.” Moreover, altcoins’ dominance seems “ready to take the spotlight.” Analyst and trader Titan of Crypto recently noted that Bitcoin dominance “is on the verge of printing a new lower high.” To the analyst, this could trigger the Altseason between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025, which could last until mid-2025. Meanwhile, crypto analyst Alex Clay suggested that investors’ chance to accumulate alts might end soon as “Uptober” approaches. To the analyst, the second correction wave of the Elliot Impulse Wave is over. As a result, cryptocurrencies, excluding BTC and ETH, are ready to begin the third bullish wave. Clay highlighted that the second correction wave displayed a bullish flag pattern. Additionally, he noted that altcoins’ market capitalization has been supported “at the strong confluence of EMA 100 + MA 200 + Key zone.” Based on this, he forecasted the sector’s mid-term target could hit a market capitalization of $1.3 trillion by May 2025 before the fourth wave. Clay also predicted a “conservative” long-term target of a $1.65 trillion market cap for the final impulse wave. Will Altcoins Hit $2 Trillion? Miky Bull highlighted Altcoins’, including ETH, market cap impulse. To the trader, the cryptocurrencies’ market cap is getting ready to break from the bullish flash pattern, potentially targeting a mark above the $1.8 trillion level. Miky previously suggested that the alts chart follows “the 2020 blueprint.” However, he considers they will differentiate by the duration of the re-accumulation phase, as he deems this cycle’s expansion will be “longer and huge.” Related Reading: Analysts Say Bitcoin Will Break $90,000 In Q4 2024 But This Must Happen First Another crypto analyst, Moustache, noted that alts have been in a 2-year-long cup and handle pattern, which is considered extremely bullish. The pattern suggests that altcoins’ market cap will significantly increase from the handle lows. To the trader, if this scenario plays out, alts target a $2.14 trillion market cap by 2025. As of this writing, altcoins sit at a market cap of $558 billion, a 10% decrease since Q3 began. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen expects Bitcoin dominance to make its “final move” to 60% either in September or, at the latest, by December 2024.
Bitcoin dominance has notched a new yearly high amid a brutal Ethereum-led sell-off.
Although the altcoin market cap has declined nearly 20% over the past month, traders remain bullish, anticipating that an “explosive rally” phase is yet to come.
On-chain data suggests Bitcoin has recently experienced an influx of investors while Dogecoin, Cardano, and other altcoins have seen a slowdown. Bitcoin Total Amount Of Holders Rise While Altcoins See Flat Movement According to data from the on-chain analytics firm Santiment, the number of Bitcoin investors has sharply increased recently. The on-chain metric of interest here is the “Total Amount of Holders,” which keeps track of the total number of addresses on a given network carrying some non-zero balance. When the value of this indicator goes up for any asset, it can be due to several things. The first and most obvious contributor to this trend would be adoption, as a fresh influx of users would naturally create more addresses. Related Reading: This Bitcoin Metric Foreshadowed Recent Price Drops, Quant Reveals Another contributor could be old investors returning to reinvest in the coin after selling out their balance earlier. The indicator would also increase when investors spread out their holdings among multiple wallets for reasons like privacy. In general, some net adoption occurs whenever the Total Amount of Holders goes up. Historically, adoption has been a constructive sign for any blockchain in the long term. Naturally, when this metric’s value goes down, it implies that some investors have decided to exit from the cryptocurrency as they have completely cleaned out their wallets. Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Total Amount of Holders for some of the top assets in the sector: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Chainlink (LINK). How the number of investors has changed for some of the top cryptos | Source: Santiment on X As displayed in the graph, Dogecoin started 2024 with some rapid adoption as its Total Amount of Holders had been observing a sharp uptrend. However, this growth only lasted for the first couple of months, as the metric has since flattened for the memecoin. Other altcoins like Chainlink and Cardano have also witnessed flat action in the metric in this period. The trend had been just the opposite for Bitcoin, where more or less flat movement had occurred in its number of investors earlier in the year, but the asset has seen some uptrend in the metric this month. It’s possible that investors were previously attracted to Dogecoin and other networks, but now that markets have been undergoing bearish price action, traders are back to preferring the original cryptocurrency. Overall, DOGE’s holders are still up 13.8% in the past three months, while BTC’s growth stands at 2.6%. Naturally, the latter’s userbase is also larger, so a relatively small percentage could be due to that. Related Reading: XRP Whales Are Active: Here’s Where They Are Sending Coins Cardano is among the few networks in the sector that have observed negative action in the Total Amount of Holders during this window, although the decrease is a mere 0.1%. BTC Price Bitcoin has been struggling to make any recovery run count recently, as its price is back at $63,000 after the latest failed attempt. Looks like the price of the coin has been heading down recently | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView Featured image from Kanchanara on Unsplash.com, Santiment.net, chart from TradingView.com
BTC dominance is creeping upwards as Layer-1s and Artificial Intelligence tokens had a rough week, while Google search interest in the halving skyrockets.
The price of Bitcoin has grown 54% since the start of 2024, and only six altcoins from the top 50 have done any better.
Bitcoin dominance is a largely redundant metric — if you believe BTC and crypto “altcoins” should be in the same category at all, that is.