Bitcoin dominance hits 3.5-year high as altcoins get left behind

Bitcoin’s market share has reached its highest level since April 2021 as the cryptocurrency’s price continues to climb amid a muted altcoin market. 

Bitcoin’s dominance hit a three-and-a-half-year high of 58.77% during late trading on Oct. 15, the same time as it hit a ten-week high of $67,800, according to TradingView.

Bitcoin ( BTC ) retraced sharply to $64,880 before climbing back to trade just above $67,000 with a market capitalization of $1.32 trillion.

Bitcoin’s market cap dominance showing its share of the crypto market. Source: Tradingview

Bitcoin’s dominance increases have historically been bad news for altcoins and BTC has gained 2.5% on the day while altcoins have traded mostly flat or have dropped. 

However, some traders think Bitcoin’s dominance will be short-lived and will soon crash, which they claim will open the market for altcoins to rise.

In an Oct. 16 X post , ICT Crypto founder Benjamin Cowen predicted that Bitcoin’s dominance would top out at 60%, while crypto investor “Coach K Crypto” claimed Bitcoin’s dominance had peaked for this cycle, telling his 129,000 X followers that Bitcoin “needs to rip” before anything else can happen.

“Soon enough, there’s going to be a breakdown in [Bitcoin dominance],” they said. “This will lead to memecoins and other major altcoins getting a taste.”

Analyst Moataz Elsayed said on Oct. 14 that Bitcoin’s dominance “is about to crash hard” and predicted the start of altcoin season .

Related: Drop in Bitcoin dominance and bullish altcoin market structure have traders predicting ‘altseason’

Ether ( ETH ) is historically one of the first assets to move when Bitcoin’s dominance declines, but the Ether to Bitcoin ratio, a conversion rate of BTC to ETH, is close to its lowest level since April 2021, falling below 0.039 again this week, according to TradingView. 

ETH’s price in terms of BTC has fallen to the lowest level in three and a half years. Source: Tradingview

Since hitting a fresh all-time high of $73,738 in March, Bitcoin has been trading mostly sideways.

But it’s now approaching a key psychological level — its 2021 all-time high of $69,000, which it held for around three years.

Institutional investors are still keen on BTC with the eleven US spot exchange-traded funds seeing net inflows of $371 million for Oct. 15. The products have seen more than $1.1 billion in aggregate inflows over the past three trading days, according to Farside Investors. 

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