Bitcoin has been struggling for the past month and struggling to hold onto $20,000, losing its footing several times. During this period, altcoins, while following the digital asset in its descent, had started to gain momentum thanks to the small recoveries recorded in the last two weeks. As July nears its first weekly close, market performance has shown bitcoin being left behind.
Altcoins take the lead
Altcoins had been the worst losers in the downtrend. Although all indices, including bitcoin, posted double-digit losses, small-cap altcoins in particular saw more losses. However, now that the market is heading towards what looks like a recovery period, smaller altcoins have pushed their heads forward to claim the majority of the gains.
Related Reading | Active Ethereum Addresses Are Touching 2020 Levels, Will Price Follow?
The small cap index posted gains of up to 4.9% just a week into July/. This rally is replicated across the entire Mid Cap index which, surprisingly, posted the strongest gains for the period. With 5.0%, the Mid Cap index is ahead of all its counterparts.
As for the large cap index, it has not been spared from the recovery trend with 3.1% gains recorded so far. These coins had followed the closest bitcoin rally and as such had been the closest to it in terms of the gains seen so far.
BTC returns worse performance against altcoins | Source: Arcane Research
Bitcoin suffers a worse fate
Bitcoin, despite being the market leader, reported the least gains of any index. The digital asset had provided a somewhat safe haven when the market crashed in June, but altcoins are getting all the gains as the market begins to stabilize.
Bitcoin’s gains so far for the month of July came in at 0.5%, the lowest of all. This was quickly followed by a decline in market dominance given the performance of other indices. However, the decline was quite small with only a change of -0.10% recorded last week.
BTC failed to break $20,500 resistance | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
This strong recovery of altcoins against bitcoin shows that confidence is returning to small-cap altcoins. These altcoins that offer more potential for higher returns are highly valued by investors looking for a 100x or similar.
Related Reading | Celsius beats liquidation price with $120 million in loan repayments
As for stable counters, they continue to maintain their dominance and have actually seen good growth during this time. The main stablecoins USDT, USDC and BUSD saw increases of 0.23%, 0.18% and 0.08% respectively. in their market share. BNB also followed this trend with an increase of 0.06%, but all other large-cap coins saw declines, with Ethereum losing 0.22% of its market share.
Featured image from Binance, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com
Follow Best Owie on Twitter for market insights, updates, and the occasional funny tweet…