Investors Who Missed Bitcoin Rally Go for Ether, Monero, Litecoin

There seems to be a trend in cryptocurrency investment. Traders of Bitcoin often leap from one digital currency to another, spreading their investments across popular currencies such as Ethereum’s Ether (ETH), anonymous currency Monero (XRP) and Litecoin (LTC). With the exception of some timeframes, Bitcoin price is usually stable and significantly less volatile in comparison to other digital currencies. At a market cap close to $20 bln, the volatility rate of Bitcoin has substantially decreased over the past few years.

However, Bitcoin price fluctuates upon the emergence of major market and industry-affecting events. For instance, when the discussion of hard fork contingency intensified and the market began to panic, Bitcoin price plunged, stabilizing in the late $900s. Traders usually attempt to pinpoint certain timeframes that Bitcoin price could either go up or down. Most recently, the acceptance of Bitcoin by major Japanese electronics retailer company Bic Camera and the legalization of the digital currency in Japan led to a surge in Bitcoin price, moving it from around $980 to $1180.

Investors who miss these short and mid-term rallies of Bitcoin tend to bet on the performance of alternative cryptocurrencies such as Ether, Monero and Litecoin that have demonstrated a significantly higher level of stability in comparison to the rest of the digital currencies on the market over longer periods of time. More importantly, crypto assets like Ether have drastically increased in price because of the rising interests of corporate investors and financial institutions. Specifically, the formation of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance increased the market cap of Ethereum by around 4x, as it jumped from $1 bln to over $4 bln within a span of two months.

The back and forth movement of Bitcoin investors and their diverse portfolio of cryptocurrencies explain the ratio of trading pairs in major assets like Ethereum. More than 50 percent of trading in the Ethereum exchange market is processed with the ETH/BTC pair. Therefore, there exist more domestic traders within the cryptocurrency community purchasing alternative crypto assets such as ETH than conventional investors trading altcoins.

Rising interest in altcoins

Bitcoin dominance index is currently at one of its lowest points. But, the 69.2 percent dominance index of Bitcoin does not represent a declining interest in the digital currency. Rather, users are simply gaining more interest in altcoins that supplement or make up for the missing links of Bitcoin. Specifically, Ethereum represents a Blockchain platform designed for developers and decentralized applications. Many developers have expressed their concerns over Bitcoin’s limited development framework. What Bitcoin lacks in flexibility is supplemented by its high-security measures and robust infrastructure.

Monero, Dash and Zcash provide anonymity to cryptocurrency users, which Bitcoin does not. Litecoin is a unique currency in the sense that it represents nearly identical philosophies, structure and monetary policy of Bitcoin. Traders or investors who feel like they missed out on Bitcoin or the recent rally of Bitcoin price still have accessible altcoins like Monero, Litecoin, Zcash, Dash and Ether to profit from.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor