Worrying Signs Appear as Bitcoin Volume Gives Way to Altcoins: Analysis

The cryptocurrency market remains in a state of rangebound trading, although, over the past 24 hours, the volatility is starting to pick up.

Bitcoin attempted a push toward $20K and failed, while many altcoins are also charting some gains, albeit mild, with certain exceptions. However, according to a CryptoQuant analyst, certain worrying signs are starting to take shape.

Bitcoin Attempts to Push $20K

For the first time in a while, Bitcoin’s volatility started picking up. During yesterday’s trading session, the cryptocurrency soared from around $19,100 to $19,700 in a matter of hours.

As seen in the chart above, the last time this happened was about six days ago, and once again, BTC’s attempts to challenge $20K were abruptly halted.

Meanwhile, the entire market remains in a state of extreme fear, according to AlternativeMe. This metric sits close to its 3-month lows at the time of this writing.

Worrying Signs Appear

In accordance with the volatility in the past 24 hours, an analyst from CryptoQuant has observed that, for the first time in a while, half of the trading volume on exchanges came from altcoins.

After a period of 1 month where Bitcoin was the most traded coin on exchanges, altcoins started to dominate. Yesterday, 50% of the trading volume on exchanges come from altcoins. Based on historical data, this is not good for the market.

I also added a long-term chart. When altcoins traded heaviliy on exchanges (dominance around 50%).

-> November 2021- January 2022: BTC Dropped from $67K to $36K

-> April 2022 – June 2022: drop from $47K to $20k

That said, Bitcoin’s dominance – the metric used to gauge its share relative to that of the entire market, remained relatively flat during the past 24 hours. This suggests that altcoins have so far failed to capitalize on the move.