Altcoins News

Story: Bitcoin’s 28% Surge Leaves Altcoin Holders Facing 74% Median Loss

By Bruce Buterin

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Bitcoin Breaks $80,000 on Fed Pivot Bets. Bitcoin crossed $80,000 recently after the Federal Reserve signaled a more dovish outlook, and the…

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Why Altcoin Rotation Hasn't Materialized. The Glassnode and Bybit report makes a point worth sitting with: flows follow performance.

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Bitcoin did something the rest of the market couldn't. Over the past two years, it climbed 28% while the median mid-cap altcoin dropped 74%, per a joint analysis from Glassnode…

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The divergence is pretty much the defining story of this cycle. Ethereum, the second-largest crypto by market cap, stayed roughly flat across the same stretch — which, compared…

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Leverage tells the same story, just louder.

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Bitcoin's futures open interest sits at roughly 2% of its market capitalization. That's a relatively modest number for the world's largest crypto.

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Bitcoin crossed $80,000 recently after the Federal Reserve signaled a more dovish outlook, and the broader market moved with it. Total crypto market capitalization jumped 4.

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But one good day doesn't rewrite two years of underperformance. And the institutional money isn't moving that way, at least not yet.

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Read also: XRP Surges 6.93% as Bitcoin Climbs Above $80,000

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Spot Bitcoin ETFs have pulled in around $55.2 billion in net inflows. Ethereum ETFs, by comparison, sit at about $13.

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The Glassnode and Bybit report makes a point worth sitting with: flows follow performance. Investors chase what's working. And what's been working, consistently, is Bitcoin.

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The "altseason" model was always a bit of a retail narrative anyway. The idea was that Bitcoin pumps first, profits rotate into Ethereum, then into mid-caps, then into small-caps.

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That said, the data has limits. Glassnode and Bybit's analysis covers specific venues, not the full market. Numbers are accurate as of August 23.

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Read also: AKEs Astonishing 156% Surge as Bitcoin Hits $81,105

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Not every altcoin is the same, obviously. NEAR and Uniswap outpacing Bitcoin during a single session isn't nothing.

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