The digital asset has hovered around the $85K level since Tuesday, but it continues to claw back market share from competing altcoins. Following comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, BTC slipped under the $84K range.
Bitcoin Expands its Dominance But Still Trades Sideways
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BTC Strengthens Its Grip as Altcoins Struggle
Bitcoin (BTC) has maintained its $85K price for the most part, but the metric most analysts are talking about today is the cryptocurrency’s market dominance, which had climbed above 64% at the time of reporting.
Overview of Market Metrics
BTC traded in a relatively tight range, between $83,100.62 and $85,232.09 over the past 24 hours. At the time of reporting, bitcoin stands at $84,161.97, up 0.25% on the day and 8.84% over the past week, highlighting a slow but sustained recovery trend.
While trading volume dipped slightly by 5.11% to $26.42 billion, bitcoin’s market capitalization rose by 0.31% to $1.69 trillion, suggesting that capital is continuing to flow into BTC even as broader activity cools. BTC dominance, as previously noted, has now risen to 64.13%, a 0.45% increase in 24 hours.
In the derivatives market, Coinglass data shows total BTC futures open interest inching up by 0.23% to $54.95 billion, while liquidation levels have stayed notably low. Only $1.47 million in positions were liquidated, with longs taking the majority of the hit at $1.22 million. The muted liquidation activity suggests a relatively calm trading environment, even as bulls continue to inch forward.
Bitcoin Dominance Crosses 64%
At $1.68 trillion, BTC is the 400-pound gorilla of the $2.66 trillion crypto market. Another metric that captures how well bitcoin has been doing lately is its comparsion to ether (ETH), the coin with the second highest market cap in the industry. The ETH/BTC ratio measures ether’s value relative to BTC and data from Coinmarketcap shows that the ratio is languishing at a 5-year low, currently at 0.01870.
Ether hasn’t fared well lately, tanking by more than 50% since the beginning of the year, and currently trading at $1,593.47, down 1.82% over 24 hours. In fact, the top two ETFs in the U.S. are leveraged ETFs that make money from shorting the cryptocurrency.
A strong dominance ratio for bitcoin could mean higher price appreciation, maybe even a new all-time high, once investors become bullish again. This afternoon, however, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cast a chill over U.S. equities and crypto markets after signaling that a near-term interest rate cut remains off the table. His remarks poured cold water on investor optimism, hinting that monetary policy may hold steady for longer than some had hoped.
By 1:58 p.m., BTC was trading for $83,393 per unit on Wednesday afternoon.
