XRP’s loss is Bitcoin and Ethereum’s gain

During a quarter that began with Bitcoin recovering from its biggest single-day drop in seven years, punctuated with the halving and ended with a two-month stable run, one would think that altcoins would have a leg up. Well, that wasn’t the case. At least not for all the altcoins, but the biggest one of the lot saw a massive increase.

According to the recently released quarterly report by CoinGecko, Ethereum, during Q2 2020, saw its market dominance in the cryptocurrency market increase by 1.6 percent. Despite dropping to as low as $80, on some exchanges, during the peak of the March 12 crash, Ethereum saw a strong recovery allowing it to take a larger share of the entire market. Ethereum, despite having a market cap that is less than one-fifth Bitcoin’s, accounts for 10.2 percent of the entire market.   

Bitcoin, despite ending the quarter trading at $3,500 over the price it began the quarter with, saw a 0.3 percent increase, which now puts its market dominance at 68.1 percent as per the report.  

Top cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation share | Source: CoinGecko quarterly report

While Bitcoin’s increased hold was expected given its price recovery, and the absence of any major price falls from April to May, for Ethereum, the coast was not all clear. On June 24, over 789,500 ETH amounting to $186 million was moved to an unknown wallet, with the market expecting a dump, lowering the price of the altcoin. On June 10, an Ethereum transaction of $134 or 0.55 ETH was sent with a transaction fee of $2.5 million or 10,668 ETH, in what was a goof-up but was still detrimental to the image of Ethereum. 

The cumulative increase in market dominance for the two top cryptocurrencies amounted to 1.9 percent or over $5 billion and most of that came from the share of XRP, given the fourth-largest cryptocurrency’s losses. In a quarter that saw XRP drop from third to fourth, its market cap dominance dropped by 1.3 percent, which amounted to $3.4 billion from the overall market cap. 

Despite Ripple rolling out many regional developments, and its trading in individual currencies increasing, compared to the big-two cryptocurrencies in the market, the coin’s market share dropped significantly, even in a bullish quarter.