Bitcoin has gone through yet another leg up, gaining 5 percent in the past 24 hours alone. And while some altcoins have managed to increase even surpass BTC, others have been left hanging in the dry. Below we take a look at the 5 worst performing cryptocurrencies against Bitcoin so far in 2019.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ironically, the second largest cryptocurrency in terms of total market capitalization has been declining in value against BTC.
ETH/BTC [coin_price coin=ethereum] is down about 14 percent so far in 2019. However, against the dollar, ETH has managed to gain around 31 percent.
Meanwhile, Ethereum’s network is facing increasing competition, especially now that Binance has announced the launch of the mainnet of its decentralized exchange Binance Chain.
While Changpeng Zhao has explicitly expressed his stance that Binance Chain doesn’t intend to compete with Ethereum, it’s entirely possible that certain projects may choose to migrate, especially given the upside price potential already witnessed this year.
Ripple (XRP)
XRP [coin_price coin=ripple] is another altcoin that has experienced a notable drop in its value against Bitcoin. Since the beginning of 2019, the cryptocurrency has lost almost 40 percent when trading against BTC.
More alarmingly, XRP has also failed to capitalize on the entire market’s surge throughout the year as it has decreased against the US dollar. XRP is down about 8.5 on that front as well.
According to some reports, Ripple is facing increasing competition in the face of ‘bankcoins’ such as the first bank-backed cryptocurrency, JPM Coin, as well as its closest rival Stellar (XLM).
Bitcoin SV (BSV)
Bitcoin SV [coin_price coin=bitcoin-sv] has surely seen better days albeit only existing since November 2018. The altcoin is down 55 percent against BTC and about 30 percent against the USD.
This year has also seen around $450 million wiped off its total market capitalization.
Bitcoin SV’s decline was further propelled by its delisting from major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Kraken, following Craig Wright’s move to sue users for calling him a fraud.
IOTA (MIOTA)
IOTA [coin_price coin=iota] is a protocol touted as the “next generation of distributed ledger technology.” Unfortunately, fancy wording doesn’t seem to be enough for its native cryptocurrency, MIOTA, which is down 40 percent against BTC.
MIOTA’s price doesn’t look so much better when trading against the USD either. The cryptocurrency is down about 15 percent, losing around $120 million of its total market cap since the start of 2019.
Tron (TRX)
Despite the ‘constant developments’ outlined by its founder Justin Sun, TRX [coin_price coin=tron] has also failed to capitalize on the strong performance of the cryptocurrency market in 2019. While it hasn’t marked any major declines, the fact that it didn’t do well while almost everything else was surging is sufficient.
TRX/BTC has lost about 10 percent. Things are better when looking at its performance against the USD. TRX has managed to gain about 35 percent since the beginning of 2019, which is perhaps expected, given the overall market rally.
Hence Why They Are ‘Altcoins’
As Bitcoinist reported, Bitcoin has dwarfed every other altcoin when it comes to returns on investment (ROI) since initial exchange listing.
Moreover, the latest rally has also managed to regain Bitcoin’s strength relative to the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization. Though being a rather poor metric, the Bitcoin dominance index now sits at 53.2 percent marking an increase of almost three percent throughout the last month.
What do you think of the above cryptocurrencies? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!
Images via Shutterstock, TradingView.