Steemit Cryptoacademy Week 13 Homework Submitted To Professor @imagen| Cryptocurrency Dominance, Altcoin Season, Relevant News And Penny Cryptocurrencies| By @bukkyi4u

INTRODUCTION

The Week 13 lecture by professor @imagen was quite instructive in educating us on a few important realities in the crypto space. Interestingly, I was able to understand such things as:

• Dominance in cryptocurrencies
• Strong falls in cryptocurrencies
• Altcoin season
• Possible effects of relevant news on crypto prices

In fulfillment of the homework task given by professor @imagen, I hereby make this submission.

DOMINANCE IN CRYPTOCURRENCY

In the world of cryptocurrencies, dominance is a term that is usually deployed in the description of the ratio of the market capitalisation of a particular cryptocurrency to the overall or total market capitalisation of the entire cryptocurrency market. Usually, the market capitalisation of a particular crypto is depicted by a specific number which is generally known as its market share. Actually this figure tells us the relative size of the crypto and is measured by multiplying the market token price of that crypto by the total number of the coin that is currently in circulating supply in the market.

Some people argue that in the economy of cryptocurrencies the Market Dominance Index of a particular coin can be used to measure its importance in relation to the overall crypto world. The market dominance index can be used to determine the demand of a coin relative to the demand of all the other coins in the entire cryptocurrency world. This is because the price of a particular digital asset is usually hinged upon the market supply and demand index of the same asset. So, greater demand of an asset can lead to increased supply of the same asset. Invariably, this would propel the price of the asset.

The Dominance Of Bitcoin At The Moment

screen from TradingView

At present, the media is awash with news of declining Bitcoin dominance. Currently, TradingView puts it at 42.48%, which represents a -1.21% negative increase in the last 24 hours. This is due to the fact that the demand for other cryptocurrencies is increasing rapidly and steadily. Different coins that have different purposes and which seek to correct the inefficiencies of Bitcoin itself are currently on the rise.

Interestingly, some of these coins have received so much market acceptance. Therefore, the dominance of Bitcoin which used to be a major issue and had variously stood at 100% as at the inception of cryptocurrencies and 70% even as at September, 2019 and put BTC as the most important crypto in the world, is steadily decreasing.

TWO TIMES WHEN THE CRYPTO MARKET HAD STRONG FALLS

The entire crypto market has experienced some periods of great depression. I will talk about two of such great periods. Coincidentally, these two are also widely accepted as the major cryptocurrency falls. They include:

• The 2018 cryptocurrency fall
• The 13th May 2021 fall

The 2018 Cryptocurrency Fall

The late 2017 and early 2018 tremendous fall of crypto market prices is now popularly known as the Great Crypto Crash. This great crash was occasioned by the sell-off of a lot of cryptocurrencies. This sell-off occurred in January 2018 and resulted in the momentous 65% fall of the price of Bitcoin alone between the 6th of January to the 6th of February that year. As was expected, other cryptocurrencies followed with weeping declines in prices. By September 2018 it was observed that cryptocurrencies had generally crashed by a whooping 80% as against their pick values in January 2018. After losing about one-third of its total value in the preceding week, BTC alone recorded an 80% overall collapse on the 26th of November 2018.

Cryptocurrencies That Were Affected By The Fall

The great crypto crash which resulted in over $640 billion loss in general cryptocurrency market capitalisation affected a lot of coins. A few of the more important coins that were affected include:

• Bitcoin: on the 17th of December 2017 the price of Bitcoin stood at $20,089.00 but had fallen to $4,195.68 by November 23 2018.

• Ethereum: on the 14th of January 2018 the price of Ethereum stood at $1,400.56 but by the 24th of November 2018 it had fallen to $123.30

• Ripple (XRP): on the 4th of January 2018 the price of XRP stood at $3.84 but by the 18th of September 2018 it had gone down to $0.27.

• Litecoin: on the 20th of December 2017 the prize of LTC stood at $349.60 but by the 23rd of November 2018 it had gone down to $31.14.

The 13th May, 2021 Fall

The 13th May 2021 fall refers to the current ongoing tremendous decline in the market value of cryptocurrencies as an aftermath of the announcement of world richest man, Elon Musk, to stop the sales of Tesla cars with Bitcoin owing to concerns over the effects of carbon emission. So far, over $473 billion has been lost in crypto market value in the last 24 hours due to this latest development.

Cryptocurrencies That Are Affected By This Current Fall

• Bitcoin: over the last 24 hours the price of Bitcoin has fallen from $54,754.18 to $46,980.02

• Ethereum: the price of Ethereum has fallen from $4,235.38 high to $3,549.41 low over the last 24 hours.

• XRP: over the last 24 hours the price of Ripple (XRP) has fallen from $1.43 high to $1.21 low.

• Litecoin: in the last 24 hours LTC price has fallen from $359.67 high to $292.28 low.

MEANING OF ALTCOIN SEASON

Altcoin season refers to a phase or period of the cryptocurrency market where other cryptos, other than Bitcoin, especially the first 50 altcoins in market rank, are seen to perform a lot better and can potentially double, triple or even grow up to 10 times in price value than Bitcoin itself. Usually, in this season it has been observed that the dominance of Bitcoin to other cryptos has received remarkable downsizing in favour of well-performing altcoins that offer some comparative advantages. From the decline observed from the TradingView chart in the dominance of Bitcoin, it can be argued that we are currently in an altcoin season.

Interestingly, in the altcoins season many altcoins have gained some remarkable strengths. I will mention just a few. Notably:

• Ethereum comes with remarkable solid detail and its own programming language and offers a smart contract blockchain where decentralized applications can be created. Also, decentralized finance has been made practicable. Interestingly, ether serves as the native altcoin which must be used as gas fees for transactions.
• Chainlink is unapologetically reconciling the world of smart contracts with real life. Smart contract applications are used for farmers insurance purposes and cross-connected APIs can enable smart calls at both ends. The Link token as an altcoin is used in performing these functions.
• Uniswap offers a liquidity pool with smart contracts which users can tap into to exchange their cryptocurrencies that are Ethereum-based. The UNI altcoin token is used to power transactions where users profit from providing liquidity.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF TWO ALTCOINS IN THE TOP 50 RANK

There are two altcoins among the top 50 rank on coinmarketcap that I decided to compare in order to bring out their inherent advantages. These coins are:

• Cardano (ADA)
• VeChain (VET)

Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is a cryptocurrency built on top of a proof-of-stake permissionless decentralized blockchain network. The network that powers this cryptocurrency claims that it has the vision of allowing innovators, changemakers and visionaries the power to positively bring about global change. The open-source network of the Cardano aims to retake power from quarters where they are unaccounted for and put them in the hands of individuals by allowing large voting rights to holders.
Decentralized applications and smart contract enablement are some of the innovative use cases of the network. With the use of Cardano, agricultural companies can track the movement of fresh produce from the field down to the fork. Also, some other products developed on the system can allow retailers to keep track of goods that are counterfeit and educational credentials can be stored in a way that they will not be tampered with.

Cardano was founded by IOHK CEO, Chris Hoskinson who was also a co-founder of the Ethereum network. Coincidentally, the Cardano blockchain was also built by IOHK. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the Cardano blockchain prides itself as having been able to successfully implement the less energy intensive proof-of-stake consensus algorithm; this is unlikely proof-of-work which plagues the Bitcoin blockchain. Again, projects developed on the blockchain have to go through a system of peer review. This means that projects must be first validated before being presented publicly.

Important Cardano (ADA) Statistics

METRICS	STATISTICS
Cardano Price	$1.83
Price Change (24h)	$0.06463
Trading Volume (24h)	$8,698,756,748.78
24h Low / 24h High	$1.51 / $1.85
Volume / Market Cap	0.1529
Market Dominance	2.59%
Market Rank	#5
Cardano Market Cap	$56,893,083,985.82
Fully Diluted Market Cap	$81,678,801,795.67

VeChain (VET)

VeChain (VET) is a supply chain that is powered by the blockchain distributed ledger system technology. Although the project was launched in the year 2016, it had actually begun in 2015. VeChain is driven by the hope of providing solutions to most of the problems encountered in the management of supply chains. This the network hopes to achieve by making use of Internet of Things (IoT) and distributed governance.
The project hopes to improve transparency, traceability and efficiency in the management of supply chains. This it hopes to achieve while placing more control in the hands of individuals and reducing cost to the barest minimum.

Created and co-founded by a former Louis Vuitton China CIO and an IT executive, Sunny Lu, it is envisioned as a network that can rely on trustlessness to complete transactions as envisaged by its creator. The vision hopes to cause a major disruption in the operational model of traditional supply chain systems. The use of a transparent system that recognises no single point of control improves security and efficiency. Again, while cost is greatly reduced with the use of an automated trustless system, tracking products becomes a lot easier.

Important VeChain (VET) Statistics

METRICS	STATISTICS
VeChain Price	$0.1829
Price Change (24h)	$-0.02219
24h Low / 24h High	$0.1584 / $0.205
Trading Volume (24h)	$3,121,988,284.71
Volume / Market Cap	0.2673
Market Dominance	0.52%
Market Rank	#17
Market Cap	$11,681,430,570.95
Fully Diluted Market Cap	$15,749,335,799.51

HOW RELEVANT NEWS CAN NEGATIVELY OR POSITIVELY INFLUENCE THE PRICE OF CRYPTOCURRENCIES

Sometimes, news from relevant cryptocurrency authoritative figures stand the chance of causing price swings, even overnight. Such relevant news that can affect the price of coins usually come from very popular and wealthy figures that could either pull out funds and cause a crash of a particular coin and, in extension, the crypto market or make gestures in favour of any coin which usually bodes well in pushing prices upwards. Such relevant news can either be:

• Positive and stare up the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) in people who would want to invest. This is often occasioned by big figures investing hugely into a particular crypto.

• On the other hand, it can be negative and spark panic selling and fear in some small investors who may become afraid when whales threaten to or make actual moves in pulling out their big investments from the coins.

Three Times That Relevant News Influenced The Price Of Cryptocurrencies

Actually, there have been times that relevant news affected the price of cryptocurrency market either negatively or positively. Three examples of such times include:

screen from CNBC

• On the 28 of April 2021 when Elon Musk and Mark Cuban tweeted in favour of Dutch coin thereby causing the price of the crypto to rise to about 32 cents in 24 hours.

screen from CNBC

screen from CNBC

• On the 23rd of February, 2021, CRO prices were seen to have gone up remarkably after Crypto.com announced a successful 60% burn of the total CRO token supply in the market.
  
  screen from CryptoVantage

• On the 12th of May when the world richest man Elon Musk announced that his electric car company Tesla would no longer permit the purchase of Tesla cars with Bitcoin taking note of rising concerns over carbon emission involved in the mining process this announcement has resulted in and over $473 billion decrease in entire crypto market in the last 24 hours.

screen from News.com.au

THE ECLIPSE PENNY CRYPTO

Penny crypto is a term commonly used to refer to cryptocurrencies whose prices fall below $1 and which can be grouped under the low market capitalization. A good example is the Eclipse (ECP) crypto coin. The Eclipse (ECP) is actually a utility token. It is developed on top of the Binance Smart Chain. The eclipse coin would be used for buying and using features that are developed on eclipse-powered platforms.

The Eclipse Whitepaper

And the white paper eclipse is described as a cryptographically anonymous cryptocurrency. It is powered by the Bitcoin codebase and makes use of the ring signature technology to hide the identity of senders while, also, using stealth addresses to conceal the identity of the receiver. Examples of important use cases of the Eclipse (ECB) include:

• Anonymous Proposals:In which case propositions can be made by entities that would rather want to conceal their identities to avoid hostilities.
• Anonymous Donations:In which case one who strongly supports a particular cause but may not want to be identified publicly can make secret donations.
• Avoiding oppressive government decrees: In which case individuals from hostile nations can still interact financially.
• Leakages:In which case well-meaning individuals at the heart of dangerous plots, especially in government quarters, can leak information to the public for possible insurgent terrorist attacks.

They are a lot of other interesting use cases which anonymize senders and receivers in a beneficial way.

Some important Eclipse (ECP) statistics include:

METRICS	STATISTICS
Eclipse Price	$0.00000007
Price Change (24h)	$-0.0000000147
24h Low / 24h High	$0.00000006 / $0.00000008
Trading Volume (24h)	$724,521.12
Volume / Market Cap	No Data
Market Dominance	No Data
Market Rank	#2876
Market Cap	No Data
Fully Diluted Market Cap	$66,027,778.56

CONCLUSION

• The dominance of a coin in relation to order cryptos can determine its relative importance
• Strong falls in cryptocurrencies could always be cross-cutting especially when it starts with King Bitcoin
• While altcoin season refers to the outshoot of coins other than Bitcoin, some altcoins now have a lot of important use cases
• Relevant news can either function to skyrocket or plumette the value of the crypto market by creating interest or panic selling respectively
• While penny cryptos could be a great investment since they have the potential of exploding in price, one must carefully study the project behind each to ascertain the feasibility before investing

(Unless otherwise indicated, all screenshots are taken from coinmarketcap.com)