Altcoins haven’t been doing so well lately. If you’ve been following the crypto market over the past few months, you know that the spotlight is firmly centered on Bitcoin (BTC), which defines which direction this nascent market heads.
As of the time of writing this article, Bitcoin dominance — meaning the percentage of the cryptocurrency market that is made up by BTC — is at 67.5%, double what this metric was at during the top of 2018’s historic altseason. Altcoins may soon shine, an analyst has argued.
Crypto Assets to Beat Bitcoin, Analyst Argues
Popular crypto trader Loma recently noted that the total cryptocurrency market capitalization (sans Bitcoin) recently bounced off “the 2017 ‘altseason’ launchpad,” which is where this metric started the aforementioned historic altseason.
He added that with Bitcoin seeing its “highest volume profile ever right at monthly support,” he is expecting for altcoins to move higher “across the board” heading into the end of 2019 and the start of 2020.
Are you buying ALTS at the 2017 'Alt Season' launchpad?
Volume is somewhat of a meme when in data sets like this but…. highest volume profile (ever) right at monthly support?
Expecting alts to move up across the board in the next 2-4 months. pic.twitter.com/6LjnWPkext
— Loma (@LomahCrypto) November 1, 2019
That’s not all. The aggregate crypto market cap is about to form a golden cross. In this case, the golden cross will see the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA) cross above the 200-day exponential moving average.
Some have rebutted this sentiment, however. Last week, a trader noted that the one-week Bitcoin dominance chart is currently building what he has dubbed an “altcoin death divergence,” which is marked by a decrease in the Relative Strength Index and another indicator as dominance has trended higher.
Also, cryptocurrency investor TortoiseTrading pointed out in a recent tweet that the recent Bitcoin dominance uptick has forced the metric out of a falling wedge pattern, which implies further upside.
Still a Bitcoin-Centric Industry
While there seems to be some evidence supporting an “altseason,” it is important to note that this industry remains very Bitcoin-centric. There’s a reason why many industry firms are looking to launch a BTC exchange-traded fund, not a cryptocurrency basket fund, or why Bakkt has futures for the Bitcoin market, rather than, say, Ethereum or Litecoin.
This seems to be for good reason. By and large, altcoin projects have underdelivered the promises that they set in the bull market of 2017/2018, and are now suffering because of that. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but they are few and far between, if at all.
Photo by Alex Loup on Unsplash