Altcoins Shine In Crypto Rally

Crypto market capitalization is near the $2.4 trillion level amidst a broad-based rally in most cryptocurrencies. In the past week, Bitcoin’s market capitalization increased by 10.3 percent while Ethereum’s increased by 9.7 percent. The remaining coins recorded a 14.7 percent surge in market capitalization.

With Bitcoin’s dominance falling to 40 from 40.7, and Ethereum’s dominance falling to 20.1 from 20.6 during the same period, it clearly is an altcoin driven rally. Cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin and Ethereum now command 39.90 percent of the market capitalization as compared to 38.8 percent seven days ago.

The 10 top-ranked cryptos excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum that have made decent gains in the past week are Binance Coin (6.6%), Solana (16.5%), Cardano (28.7%), XRP (9.5%), Terra (26.7%), Polkadot (31%), Avalanche (11.8%) and Dogecoin (16.6%).

Of the top-100 cryptocurrencies, only 7 are in overnight negative territory. Likewise, in the same group, only 4 cryptocurrencies are negative on a weekly basis.

Bitcoin is now trading at $50,955.60, up 11.18 percent in the past week. 76 percent of the holders are in the money at current prices.

The recent rally to the multi-week high of $51,814 is despite the U.S. SEC rejecting two Bitcoin spot ETF proposals from Valkyrie Investments and Kryptoins stating failure to meet the regulator’s requirement of preventing manipulative practices and frauds.

Ethereum’s current trading price is $4,079.36, a surge of 7.79 percent over the past seven days. Only 7 percent of Ethereum holders are out of money at current prices.

Meanwhile, Ethereum network recently launched the first proof-of-stake Kintsugi public testnet that marks a significant step in the transition from proof-of-work to the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

Terra (LUNA) has touched a fresh all-time high of $103.33, a few hours ago. Terra (LUNA) tops the DeFi space with a market capitalization of around $35 billion. Terra, a blockchain protocol that uses fiat-pegged stablecoins to power price-stable global payments systems has gained close to 28 percent in the past week.

As of this writing, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), XRP (XRP), Terra (LUNA), Polkadot (DOT), Avalanche (AVAX), Dogecoin (DOGE), Polygon (MATIC), Litecoin (LTC), Algorand (ALGO), TerraUSD (UST), and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) are the 15 top ranking coins in terms of market capitalization.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) entered the coveted league of top-15 cryptocurrencies after an 83-percent weekly rally. NEAR Protocol is a layer-one blockchain that was designed as a community-run cloud computing platform. The coin had touched an all-time high of $16.39 a few days ago and is currently trading 6 percent below the level at $15.40.

Polkadot (DOT), Algorand (ALGO) and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) have gained in rankings whereas Avalanche (AVAX), TerraUSD (UST) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) have fallen a notch since our review on December 22.

In the tokens category, Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), SHIBA INU (SHIB), Crypto.com coin (CRO), Binance USD (BUSD), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Uniswap (UNI), Chainlink (LINK), Dai (DAI), Decentraland (MANA), Axie Infinity (AXS), The SandBox (SAND), FTX Token (FTT), Bitcoin BEP2 (BTCB), and Gala (GALA) rank in the order of market capitalization.

Crypto.com coin (CRO), The SandBox (SAND) and Gala (GALA) have improved their rankings since the earlier review. However, Binance USD (BUSD), FTX Token (FTT), Bitcoin BEP2 (BTCB) and UNUS SED LEO (LEO) have slipped.

Stablecoin dominance dropped to 6.76 percent, from 7.03 percent five days ago, in reflection of the greater levels of risk-taking visible in the market. Stablecoin market capitalization is currently at $162.16 billion.

The crypto market surge in the past few days has generated interest in cryptos beyond the top-ranked coins also. Crypto categories in the field of Web 3, Research, Decentralized Exchanges, DAO, Yield Farming etc. have all surged more than 5 percent. None of these categories include the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Riding piggy-back on the popularity of market leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum are a host of cryptocurrencies with a wide variety of use cases. With increasing popularity, these alternative cryptos are getting accepted into the financial mainstream for various payments as well. Those seeking to innovate and apply blockchain technology and cryptography can be hopeful that altcoins too are destined for acceptance and eventually valuation gains.

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