New Hype and Old News

There are growing numbers of serious players in the cryptocurrency space. Bitcoin core (BTC) has seen a huge uptrend in price however it’s market dominance has not shown the same rapid increase.

The total global cryptocurrency market cap has more than doubled in the last month from 200B to around half a Trillion, however bitcoin’s market share has remained relatively stagnant.

This means a lot of the new money in the market is effectively going into alt coins, not just Bitcoin. In reality this could also be caused by the older, wiser Bitcoin investors selling BTC for alt coins in anticipation of a crash in BTC.

To be fair Bitcoin has gradually clawed a good 20% of the market back since Ethereum (and Ripple) boomed at the end of June this year. The early hype around Ethereum helped it grab 30% and Bitcoin came down to a low of 37%.

Currently BTC dominates around 55–60 percent of the global cryptocurrency market, seemingly on the up with all the hype around the recent all time highs in Bitcoin’s price. The question is, if Bitcoin ultimately fails to maintain market dominance, which alt coin will take the top spot and will it hold the same kind of market share?

Bitcoin will likely be top dog for a while yet but if it does have a big crash (this could happen for a number of reasons including governmental regulation, energy costs, centralisation, market manipulation or from alt coins providing better fees, scalability, anonymity and speeds) the thought that another currency could take the lead isn’t that preposterous.

New adopters who don’t understand the tech are often sold on the Bitcoin “brand” name since it’s on everyones lips. Now before every Youtube video I’m forced to listen to five seconds of Tai “WHAT IS THIS BITCOIN THING?” Lopez.

You might assume the general public would be most interested in buying Bitcoin, not alt coins. This might be true for those who are looking for a quick money maker and have done no research but I think there’s could be a lot of people new to crypto currency, or keen to get involved now (fomo) who see bitcoin as old news already, an overpriced bubble due to burst.

These people are looking at alt coins for the “next Bitcoin” and for the huge gains early Bitcoin adopters have seen. According to CNBC, for example since Litecoin’s success we should just “Forget bitcoin,” already… I’m not sure Litecoin creator Charlie Lee would actually agree.

This quest for the next big thing is probably part of the reason for Litecoin’s recent price hike since it’s one of the only other two coins currently available on Coinbase. Another reason has to be Litecoin’s fees and transaction speeds. Paying an extra 10-20 dollars in fees for Bitcoin is significant for the average joe who wants to transfer a small amount of their weekly/monthly pay-check regularly from their Coinbase wallet to another exchange for trading with other alt coins.

The majority of newbies are surely attracted by the money, i mean who doesn’t like free stuff? However there is another appeal for those who take the time to try to understand what it’s all about, researching and reading the white papers, not just the clickbait news and memes.

The financial revolution.

After being enticed by the promise of free money this new world of cryptocurrency has allowed anyone to become a high-flying crypto trader overnight, supposedly.

The crypto currency exchanges offer a far lower bar of entry compared to the stock market, with fewer regulations. This allows new traders to explore these new, volatile markets without having to risk half their life savings. (maybe a quarter looking at the average US Bitcoin buyer’s net worth, although these figures are a bit out of date now the market has just grown so much)

“Once total assets and total debt are calculated, total debt is subtracted from total assets to come up with net worth.”

The new crypto stock market is democratizing the investment game. Providing less regulation, easier access, 24/7 global trading exchanges, and great potential opportunities for startups and investors.

The Global financial crisis left a lot of people distrustful of banks, and the financial system as a whole. Especially in Europe, since the UK government and other European governments took more risk than the US, costing their taxpayers significantly more. (FT)

Putting trust in algorithms, cryptography and unbacked, decentralised digital currency may not seem like the safest bet, but it’s not that crazy in such politically unstable times with the increasing paranoia of another global financial crisis, recession and depression.

“we now have cryptographically guaranteed caps on currency issuance, unlike governments who can print new money ad infinitum. It perversely does the opposite of what governments have done to businesses and society over centuries, in that value is preserved and not eroded”

‘’buy the rumour, sell the news”

Is Bitcoin the news? It’s all over the news, but so are Litecoin and Ripple now. It’s not easy to keep up in the hyperactive cryptocurrency news right now.

There’s certainly an abundance of rumour and hype around cryptocurrencies in general. Which one is going to the moon, sun, mars? Is it a bubble? when will it burst? What’s the price prediction for 2018? what’s the next hot ICO? How much is the energy consumption? Did China really ban it? Are North Korea trying to “hack” it?

In the relatively short term I think theres a chance the volatile markets will cause a lot of the new adopters to cut their losses and leave, especially if we see a sudden crash in the top cryptocurrencies.

I’m no expert but I don’t think BTC is on it’s way out just yet. Longer term I don’t think it’s crazy to consider an alt coin could surpass Bitcoin. There’s also the chance of a more balanced market, with more crypto investors spreading a portfolio over various currencies and without a big name holding over half of the market share. Ultimately, who knows what the future hodls, maybe there will be a new groundbreaking technology that changes everything?

Hodl tight.

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