Bitcoin v Altcoins

I have scoured the internet over my morning pre-work coffee and I have not found a single chart that shows the relationship between bitcoin and the rest of the altcoin pack over time.

Why does this matter?

Because the whole crypto thing is currently (and for the foreseeable future) framed in a bitcoin vs the rest kind of way.

And at least for the moment, the whole crypto economy behaves in a BTC vs the rest kind of way.

The screenshot from https://coinmarketcap.com/1 tells all.

Screenshot https://coinmarketcap.com/1

Market Cap: $236,706,383,947 / 24h Vol: $8,161,597,924 / BTC Dominance: 56.8%

It's really a no-brainer to say that the market only really has confidence in one crypto currency. Only one is capable of standing alone: BTC.

See that BTC Dominance statistic? I'm not making this up. It's a thing.

Everyday that statistic gauges how willing the market is to embrace the pack of altcoins in their own right. Once, in a fit of madness soon corrected, BTC dominance fell to as low as 37% - but since that June 19 (2017) correction, it has fluctuated between 45-60% BTC dominance (it's all viewable on https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ - check it out).

Yes, the market is hedging its bets with the rest of the pack, trying to pick the next winner, but it's trust is in BTC. And the market is tentatively investing in altcoins as a result of that trust in BTC.

Even as the total market cap is climbing Mount Everest, the BTC dominance is holding at between 45-60%.

Screenshot https://coinmarketcap.com/1

This is telling.

What I see happening - and what I would love to see a graph to confirm - is that in-between BTC's intermittent growth spurts, the altcoin market slowly catches up and fills the crypto market space out. Together, BTC and altcoins are, in this way, steadily increasing the overall crypto marketcap.

If this pattern continues, the sky is literally the upper limit of investment in crypto http://woobull.com/the-10-000-year-view-of-cryptocurrency/

What does this mean?

Well, as the market matures, it is reasonable to assume that other coins will sporadically gain the confidence of the market in their own right and join BTC in a realm of pre-eminence: the cryptocurrency gold-standard.

Which ones? STEEM? EOS? SmartCash?

That's the trick isn't it. Who knows? Every time BTC plateaus, a different altcoin seems to gain favour. Think Ethereum, or Bitcoin Cash.

In any case, the pattern is that the pack will increase in value as BTC does.

At some point it's also possible that BTC may reach an upper limit - but it's uniquely positioned to maintain it's primacy due to the limited number of coins. I also don't think that will happen until at least another couple of coins have gained the trust of the market in their own right.

This is probably some time away - it's therefore likely that this is pattern we are in will keep repeating itself for months, if not years. Until the market puts it's trust in more altcoins in their own right.

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If you know of a site that hosts a BTC vs the rest chart, or can make one, please let me know in the comments!

Note: this is not financial advice, simply a look at the patterns...

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BTC image courtesy of pixabay.com
Screenshots courtesy of courtesy of https://coinmarketcap.com/

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