Bitcoin and Ethereum
Bitcoin and Ethereum

Ethereum Is ‘Recognized On Its Own Terms’ Like Bitcoin, No Longer Just An Altcoin: Report

San Francisco Open Exchange (SFOX), an institutional digital asset exchange, argued that Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH) may no longer be considered just another altcoin.

SFOX’s institution-grade crypto insights and analyses report covered the latest commentary around Facebook’s controversial crypto project and its impact on the Bitcoin price and other cryptoassets.  

Ether Is Now Recognized On Its “Own Terms”, Like Bitcoin

The SFOX team noted that the correlation between the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether price is significantly greater than Bitcoin’s correlation with other altcoins. According to SFOX’s report: 

“This may support the idea that Ethereum is coming into its own as a blockchain that is publicly recognized as an asset on its own terms, much like Bitcoin. If this trend continues, it may become inappropriate to categorize Ethereum as an ‘altcoin’ on a par with other cryptoassets that are not Bitcoin.”

SFOX’s blog post points out that Ether’s correlation to Bitcoin was 0.788 in the 30 days before July 22, 2019. Meanwhile, the correlations to BTC of other alts are as follows: Bitcoin Cash (BCH) 0.638, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) 0.619, Litecoin (LTC) 0.577, Ethereum Classic (ETC) 0.602. 

BTC Price Plummets Following Senate Hearings on Libra

The SFOX report mentions that recent discussions and controversy around the Libra cryptocurrency project may have led to an increase in BTC’s volatility and dominance. While Bitcoin was not directly discussed during the recent Senate hearings on Libra, the BTC price dropped considerably due to negative comments made about Facebook’s cryptocurrency. 

The SFOX team further notes that Bitcoin dominance increased significantly from around 50% in March 2019 to currently between 65% and 75%. Yassine Elmandjra, crypto analyst at investment firm ARK, revealed that BTC’s hashrate dominance against its forks presently stands at around 97%.

Bitcoin is currently trading at around $9,531.45, down over 5% in the past 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap data. The Ether price has also dropped nearly 5% in the last 24 hours to around $210.01 at press time.