Large cap altcoins have appreciated nicely against the US Dollar in 2019. Their gains however, have paled in comparison to Bitcoin’s bullish rally this year. But Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert said in a tweet Wednesday that he expects the market value of quality altcoins to catch up to the Bitcoin price boom sometime soon:
Starting to feel like it is time for the quality alt coins to begin catching up with BTC. I think the bottom is in
— Barry Silbert (@barrysilbert) July 10, 2019
Bitcoin dominance is the measure of its market share of the cryptocurrency industry. By this metric Bitcoin has stomped all over altcoins in 2019. Bitcoin market share surged from 50% on March 25th to 64% on July 8th. In less than four months Bitcoin went from half the crypto market to nearly two thirds of it. But there are signs that the altcoin market is heating up. It may catch up to Bitcoin soon, as Barry Silbert avers.
The Case For Altcoin Summer 2019
Altcoin news has hardly been dour over the past few months. It just hasn’t been as euphoric as Bitcoin’s story. The industry leader has more-than-decisively ended the long crypto winter that began in December ’17 / January ’18. Large caps like Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin have played the tortoise to Bitcoin’s hare. Small cap coins have too. They’ve moved forward, but without quite the spring in their step.
An imminent altcoin price boom is certainly in line with historical trends. For example in October 2017 Bitcoin was running ahead of altcoins. That was on the heels of a market wide crypto price correction. Then in December its market share crashed, while altcoins boomed.
The commonly understood reason for this phenomenon is the bitcoin trading pairs on major crypto exchanges. They create channels for the new liquidity of a bitcoin price boom. These naturally flow to altcoins when there’s a pullback from over-baked satoshis.
Technical analysis reveals signals of an altcoin price boom ahead as well.
$ALT Total Marketcap resembles an ascending broadening wedge. While certainly not a guaranteed bullish signal, the last time we saw one of these in $crypto there was quite a pop.
Read more @ https://t.co/NOmLdG0mYB pic.twitter.com/VR80gV835C
— The Crypto Dog📈 (@TheCryptoDog) July 6, 2019
The Case Against Alts
As is common in the crypto space however, there is plenty of disagreement, and accusations of pumping altcoins as well. Replies from the Twitter peanut gallery suggested Silbert is holding a big bag of altcoins and needs the pump to give his position a lift.
A more serious counter argument suggests the technical signals show a period of altcoin accumulation that won’t push altcoin prices over the tipping point into a boom until 2020.
$BTCUSD 2012 – 2015
VS.#Altcoin Marketcap 2016 – 2019
We’re now entering the accumulation period for $ALTS, it will likely last until 2020.
2020… 🚀 pic.twitter.com/6gjY8nnsiK
— Moon Overlord (@MoonOverlord) July 6, 2019
