Altcoins Rule in Q1; BTC Dominance Down to 50%

Crypto markets have had their best three month period for
over a year during 2019. A solid 16% gain in total market capitalization has
taken things from $125 billion on January first to $145 billion at the end of
March and there has been a clear uptrend for the past two months. Daily volume
has also surged from around $13 billion at the beginning of the year to over
$30 billion today.

Top Three Dominance Dwindles

Bitcoin has not been the market leader this quarter however
as its market dominance has dwindled at the expense of altcoins which have been
driving momentum. From a 2019 peak of almost 54%, BTC’s share of the market has
fallen back to just over 50%, its lowest level for seven months. For the past
four months Bitcoin has failed to break heavy
resistance at $4,200.  

Second and third largest crypto assets Ethereum and XRP have
not had things so great either as their dominance has also declined to ten and below
nine percent respectively. So which altcoins are making the moves and driving
markets?

Binance Coin has been one of 2019’s biggest movers with a
180% gain from $6 to over $17. The exchange based token has come under a little
fire for being controlled by the company but that has not hampered its epic
performance as BNB drives up the coin cap charts to seventh spot.   

Litecoin
has also doubled in price during Q1 with a surge from just over $30 on
January first to a touch over $60 by the end of March. Volume has pumped from
$350 million to $1.6 billion which has also sent LTC racing up the charts to
take fourth place as it jockeys with EOS for position.

Tezos is another altcoin that has over doubled in three
months, primarily in a recent Coinbase driven spurt. XTZ started out the year
trading below $0.47 and is now priced at over $1 in an epic 125% drive that has
seen it usurp NEO, Ethereum Classic and NEM.

A similar move has been seen with Ontology which began 2019
trading at $0.60 and has since over doubled to reach $1.30. Bigger moves have
been made with a lot of the smaller cap coins such as Ravencoin which has
surged over 400% this year according to Coinmarketcap.com. Samsung’s
Galaxy S10 announcement has resulted in gaming based Enjin
Coin pumping 300% and Everex has had a similar gain on the back of news
that EVX received approval from the US state of New Jersey to onboard users and
perform crypto to crypto domestic and international transactions.