Bitcoin Dominance at Critical Juncture: Are Altcoins Going ‘to Hades?’

Bitcoin dominance has been steadily rising back to its pre-2017 levels. Its share of the market currently lies at more than two-thirds of all the market capitalization of all digital currencies. This has left many altcoin investors questioning whether the rest of the market will see a massive enough influx of capital to outperform Bitcoin as it did during the previous bull market. Such rises in alternative cryptocurrencies versus BTC have become popularly known as “alt-seasons.”

Can Bitcoin Ruin the Future of Altcoins?

Cryptocurrency market analyst @CryptoNekoZ believes that that Bitcoin dominance has reached the point where a continued rise would make a new alt-season highly unlikely. He argues that each time the metric manages to break above a local high, it continues to rise. This leaves the altcoin market with even more catching up to do versus Bitcoin:

$BTC Dominance Chart

– The dominance chart has been fluid with respect to ranges.

– The big question is will BTC break the 70% dominance marker, or will we see another rejection.

– A rejection would spur another mini alt "season"

– A further rise would send alts to hades 😟 pic.twitter.com/8NONLFOguE

— NekoZ (@CryptoNekoZ) August 16, 2019

In fact, he goes as far as to say that if Bitcoin continues its rise and manages to get above 70 percent dominance, it would “send alts to hades.” However, should Bitcoin fail to break out of its current range, other cryptocurrencies would likely experience a short-term pump.

Is Bitcoin Better Without Altcoins?

Other analysts have argued that altcoins continuing to spiral into obscurity is needed for Bitcoin prices to get back up to all-time highs and beyond. Both YouTube technical analyst Tone Vays, and Civic (CVC) co-founder and CEO Vinny Lingham have expressed this earlier in 2019. Lingham argued in April that the market is not discerning enough and that it makes no sense for different projects that are entirely unrelated, apart from sharing similar technologies, to rise in tandem with one another.

The key indicator for the start of a sustainable bull run is likely a decoupling of asset values from Bitcoin (i.e. Bitcoin’s strength weakens other networks or vice versa). Anything else is just speculation again (maybe we need another bubble to learn more lessons? 😉😂)…

— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham) April 10, 2019

Tone Vays argues along similar lines, although is much more damning in his appraisals of the altcoin market. He even created a YouTube show called CryptoScam, to highlight the regulatory troubles ICO operators and other cryptocurrency companies will almost certainly face at the hands of the SEC and other global regulators. Recent actions from the SEC against the likes of social messaging firm Kik and Veritaseum suggest that the trader may indeed have a point. How likely do you think the return of an alt-season is? Let us know in the comments below. Buy and trade cryptocurrencies with a 100x multiplier on our partner exchange, StormGain.

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