The cryptocurrency market experienced a significant rebound last week, providing a much-needed boost for many short-term speculators to profit. Bitcoin led the chargebreaking above the $64,790 mark, although momentum appeared to have weakened at the time of writing.
This wave was reflected throughout the altcoin landscape, with several cryptocurrencies including TRON, Avalanche (AVAX), and Chainlink (LINK) recording impressive gains ranging from 20% to 30% in just seven days.
Despite these gains among the most widely held altcoins, Bitcoin continues to dominate the entire market.
Bitcoin Increases Its Dominance: What Does This Mean for Altcoins?
He altcoin season Bitcoin has yet to gain momentum since the beginning of the year as it continues to receive the majority of investors’ attention. This is clearly reflected in the Altcoin Season Index, which currently registers a reading of 22 and tips the scales in Bitcoin’s favor. The scales also register a reading of 29 on the Altcoin Monthly Index, also in Bitcoin’s favor.
Basically, the index works by analyzing the performance of various altcoins against Bitcoin. If 75% of the top 50 altcoins performed better than Bitcoin over the past 90 days, it is considered to be altcoin season. If 75% of the top 50 altcoins performed better than Bitcoin over the past 90 days, it is considered to be an altcoin month. Interestingly, the last official altcoin season occurred during the 2021 bull run.
According The graph belowThe last time market dominance nearly tipped in favor of altcoins was in January 2024, when it rose above 75 for just a few days. Today, the scale mostly hovers between 20 and 30, further pushing altcoin season out of the way. In fact, the index even dipped as low as 12 on July 30, further highlighting Bitcoin’s continued dominance.
This dominant Bitcoin trend is supported by CoinMarketCap price data. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $63,850 with a market cap of $1.26 trillion. This represents a 6.92% increase over the past seven days. As such, 56.3% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap is currently held in Bitcoin.
What is the performance outlook for altcoins?
Due to Bitcoin's dominance, many altcoins now tend to mirror its performance. However, there are exception periods when some altcoins independently experience notable rallies. At the time of writing, Ethereum holds the largest share of altcoin market cap at $314.2 billion. Other altcoins collectively have a market cap of $438.48 billion, while stablecoins have a market cap of $161.97 billion.
The most impressive gains currently belong to Sun Token, a TRON-based stablecoin exchange token, which has gained 305% in seven days. Memecoins Dogwifhat (WIF) and POPCAT have also gained 32.7% and 76% respectively in the same time period.
Altcoins will undoubtedly continue to show varying degrees of performance depending on their individual utility and market adoption.
Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView
