Ethereum’s price has shot back up, bringing cryptocurrency’s market capitalization past $13 billion and bringing Bitcoin’s portion down below 80%
The price per Ether has risen to over $14 and its market cap from about $975 million to about $1.2 billion over the last week. Meanwhile, over the same time period Bitocin’s market cap fell from $10.5 billion to $10.28 billion, reducing its share of the global cryptocurrency market cap to below 80%.
Ethereum’s successful hard fork, Coinbase integration
The partial price and market cap recovery can be traced to Ethereum’s successful hard fork. The fork was agreed upon in response to the DAO hack, which resulted in the theft of a large amount of Ether. A proposed hard fork in the currency, isolating the stolen funds and rendering them without value, was readily agreed to by the Ethereum mining community and subsequently implemented, restoring confidence, and with it, value.
Additionally, cryptocurrency exchange/wallet provider/merchant solution Coinbase recently announced Ethereum integration, solidifying the currency’s place as being respected by the cryptocurrency “establishment.”
“Age of altcoins” approaches as Bitcoin’s dominance slowly recedes
Bitcoin’s price and market cap have stagnated relative to the rise of alternative cryptocurrencies, having reached a peak market cap of almost $14 billion in late 2013, and currently valuing around $10.3 billion, 73.5% of its height. Meanwhile, combined altcoin market cap has risen to $2.75 billion, about 92% of its all-time high of $3 billion last month, 37.5% higher than its 2013 high of about $2 billion.
As fees and mempool of backlogged transactions continue to grow, alternative cryptocurrencies continue to make inroads, causing Bitcoin’s share of the cryptocurrency market to recede from around 95% in 2013 to below 80% now.