- Several on-chain metrics are in favor of a new alt season.
- Bitcoin’s dominance has fallen significantly during 2020.
Many cryptocurrency investors thought the alt season started somewhere in mid-2020, however, the most recent market pullback made it clear that Bitcoin is still the king alongside Ethereum. In the last two years, the peak of Bitcoin’s dominance was 70% in September 2019. This dominance has fallen to 58% currently.
It’s important to note that this number doesn’t accurately reflect the real dominance of Bitcoin as many stablecoins are inflating the market capitalization of altcoins, and of course, more cryptocurrencies are created every day.
The total market capitalization peaked in January 2018 during a massive bull run, at $816 billion. Despite the recent rallies, the current number is only $334 billion, which means the potential for the upside is huge.
Is the interest in cryptocurrencies growing?
We have seen significant growth in the interest in Bitcoin, especially after several notable trust funds started buying the digital asset in 2020. Unfortunately, this doesn’t immediately translate into altcoins gaining strength.
Ethereum has been the leader of the altcoins, as most tokens are built on top of the blockchain. The average number of new addresses joining the network has definitely increased in 2020. In January, the average was around 75,000 addresses per day. August, September, and now October is seeing notable growth, with an average of 114,000 per day.
ETH New and Active Addresses
Similarly, the number of active addresses for Ethereum has also exploded from a low of 195,000 on January 26 to a peak of 626,000 on August 2 and 428,000 currently, still two times higher.
One of the best performing altcoins of 2020 was ChainLink, exploding from a low of $1.76 to a peak of $20 in less than nine months.
LINK New Addresses
The growing trend of new addresses joining the network is even more apparent here, with an average four times higher in October but up to 10 times high at its peak in August.
Total Altcoin Capitalization
The total market capitalization of altcoins, excluding Bitcoin, is at a two-year high, according to CoinMarketCap. The last peak was $142 billion on June 26, 2019, the new peak happened a month ago at $169 billion, indicating that perhaps, the altseason is about to see a breakout.