Ethereum Sheds Market Share At Rapid Pace
Despite a resurgence in users and adoption, Ethereum (ETH) has dramatically underperformed Bitcoin in the early stages of the next bull cycle. This comes in spite of the cries for a so-called “altseason”, during which analysts expect for non-Bitcoin crypto assets, including Ethereum, XRP, and what have you, to outperform the market leader.
As pointed out by prominent industry commentator Stop and Decrypt on Twitter, Ethereum’s market dominance, the share of the entire cryptocurrency market’s value that is Ethereum’s, recently collapsed under 8%. In fact, as of the time of Stop and Decrypt’s tweet, dominance for the second largest crypto asset sat at 7.84%, the lowest it has been in some two years.
What’s crazy is that during the height of the last bout of cryptomania, this same statistic was at over 20%. In fact, there was one point in mid- to late-2017 when some elements in the cryptocurrency community were expecting for the market capitalization of Ethereum to surmount that of Bitcoin.
The underperformance of Ethereum is seemingly stemming from the lack of initial coin offerings (ICOs) issued through the platform, which were once a catalyst for anyone and everyone to purchase ETH. You see, back in 2017, “investors” looking for outsized gains were mandated to purchase ETH to participate in flashy ICOs, which often promised to offer paradigm-shifting protocols.
Also, altcoins have been largely failing to match the pace of Bitcoin. As reported by Ethereum World News previously, Bitcoin’s market dominance has swelled to 68.9%, the highest this statistic has been in over a year. Bitcoin’s dominance over altcoins may be related to simple cryptocurrency market cycles. Chris Burniske, a partner at venture fund Placeholder, suggested in a Twitter thread that when BTC rallies strongly, a “majority of ‘alts’ fall against Bitcoin.”
ETH Bulls Hodling On To Hope
Despite the harrowing path that Ethereum has found itself on, bulls still have some hope. Analyst DonAlt recently pointed out an interesting fractal, which suggests that ETH may fall by another 20% against BTC, then surge to the upside, potentially to set new all-time highs.
He’s not the only bull. Teddy Cleps’ analysis of the ETH/USD chart was actually somewhat bullish. He pointed out yesterday that Ethereum’s 1-day chart looks “interesting”, making a point of the close above the 21-day and 200-day exponential moving averages (EMA). This implies that bulls are in control.
Also, the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD), an indicator meant used to track trends, flipped bullish. Barring that this is a fakeout, Ethereum should continue higher in the coming days. Most importantly, however, Teddy notes that there is little resistance until ETH reaches $260, meaning that if there is sufficient buying pressure, the asset shouldn’t have too much of a trouble reaching that level.
Title Image Courtesy of Marco Verch Via Flickr