Bitcoin’s Crypto Market Share Hits 5-Week Low as Potential “Santa Claus Rally” Approaches

Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, has recently seen its market share of the cryptocurrency ecosystem drop to a 5-week low after various altcoins saw their prices surge while it was slowly climbing.

According to CryptoCompare data, bitcoin is currently trading at $6,540 after rising 1.4% in the last 24-hour period. Its market cap is currently of $113.6 billion, meaning its share of the cryptocurrency market is of about 51.7%.

While cryptocurrency prices have seemingly started to slowly rise, most news outlets have been focusing on the equity markets as these have been more volatile than bitcoin itself. According to Polish researchers, however, the cryptocurrency’s low volatility is a sign it’s maturing.

BTC’s market share slump was first spotted by MarketWatch, which spoke to Mati Greenspan, a senior market analyst at eToro. Per Greenspan, it’s common to see the stock market rally close to the end of the year over “increased activity in the private sector during the holidays.”

The volatile month of October the equity markets had, combined with uncertainty surrounding a potential trade war between the US and China, along with the Fed’s monetary policy, has seen the markets perform less than ideally. He added:

It may be too early to say this, after all we’ve only seen very moderate crypto gains this week, but it is very possible that we might see a Santa Claus rally in the crypto markets.

Analysts have also pointed out that a potential bull run may have been signaled after various ERC-20 tokens started “decoupling from Ethereum.” Per the analysts these tokens – among them BAT, MKR, and ZRX – have been creating their own platforms and communities, which aren’t waiting for the price of ETH to bounce back and are “paving their own bull run.”

Institutional interest in cryptoassets is, according to Grayscale Investments’ quarterly report, strong and growing. This, as the report claims the ratio of institutional investment coming into its products rose during Q3 of this year to 70%, up from 59% for the year’s average.

Various top altcoins have recently seen their prices rise. XRP, according to analysts, broke through its 200-day moving average, which helped it rise to the $0.535 mark. Bitcoin cash (BCH) surged well over 25% after exchanges showed support for its upcoming November 15 hard fork, and then rose to the $621 mark it’s currently trading at after the World Economic Forum (WEF) claimed it is consistent with Satoshi Nakamoto’s Vision.

Ethereum’s ether, the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, is currently up nearly 1% in the last 24 hours, as it’s trading at $218. Altcoins like monero, litecoin, and zcash have all dropped less than 1% in said period.