Bitcoin’s Control Over the Crypto Market Dropped, Ethereum’s Share Doubled in 2021
Bitcoin’s lot in the cryptocurrency market fell sharply from 70% to 40% in 2021 and is expected to slide further next year.
While ethereum’s stake doubled in the overall market in 2021 with other popular tokens like Binance coin and dogecoin also gaining momentum, according to a media report.
Bloomberg first reported this story.
Bitcoin’s reign in the crypto market will continue to drop next year “given the explosion of assets in the crypto space and the various use cases,” Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia Pacific at Singapore crypto exchange Luno told Bloomberg.
The value of the most traded cryptocurrency gained roughly 60% in 2021 to $46,175.40 on Friday’s close from $29,374.15 on Jan. 1, according to data from Yahoo Finance.
Bitcoin price is down 1.6% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, a price-tracking website for crypto assets.
In 2021, bitcoin was considered a risk asset, like technology stocks, rather than a hedge against inflation, Bloomberg reports.
Despite their tumultuous ride, cryptocurrencies added $1.5 trillion in overall market value in 2021, Bloomberg reports.
The overall market after gains is worth roughly $2.3 trillion as of Dec. 17, according to data from CoinGecko cited by Bloomberg.
Separately, 0.01% of bitcoin holders control 27% of the 19 million bitcoin in circulation, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The top 10,000 bitcoin holders account for 5 million bitcoins, worth $232 billion, according to a new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research cited by the Journal.
“It means the majority of the gains from the rising price of bitcoin and increased adoption go to a disproportionately small group of investors,” the Journal reports.
“Despite having been around for 14 years and the hype it has ratcheted up, it’s still the case that it’s a very concentrated ecosystem,” Finance Professor Antoinette Schoar at MIT Sloan School of Management told the Journal.
Schoar conducted the study along with finance professor Igor Makarov at the London School of Economics.
