Is Now The Time To Invest In Cryptocurrencies Beyond Bitcoin?

The apex cryptocurrency by market cap — Bitcoin (BTC) — is losing its dominance, leading analysts to label the trend as the coming of the so-called "altcoin season."

What Happened: At press time, BTC enjoyed a market dominance of 59.1% with Ethereum (ETH) at second place with 11.4% dominance. BTC’s dominance is at its lowest since October last year, as per CoinMarketCap data.

Pointing towards BTC dominance, Altcoins-USD market cap and the BTC/USD spot price analyst Filbfilb tweeted “Alt szn.”

Why It Matters: Analyst Michaël van de Poppe expects a “very bullish” summer for altcoins as their market capitalization touches new highs hovering near the $750 billion mark, reported Cointelegraph.

On Monday, Visa Inc V launched a pilot to allow transactions to be settled through USD Coin (USDC) on its network.

See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

On the Visa announcement, Poppe said on Twitter that “[Ethereum] is going to surprise everyone massively.” Poppe had in January predicted a $10,000 price level for ETH. 

Crypto trader and investor Scott Melker tweeted that “Altcoins look great” on Monday.

As for BTC, trader and analyst Rekt Capital said on Monday that the apex cryptocurrency has bottomed.

Several altcoins have seen massive surges this year, outperforming Bitcoin, which has surged about 95% year-to-date, by quite a margin. Harmony (ONE) has surged 4553% in 2021 to press time, as per Messari data. Pundi X (NPXS) has seen a 4203% spike, Enjin Coin (ENJ) has surged 1684.7%, and Theta Fuel (TFUEL) has seen an 1105% surge. Among the top cryptocurrencies by market cap, those outperforming Bitcoin this year including Binance Coin (BNB) at 620%, Cardano (ADA) at 582%, Polkadot (DOT) at 306%, and Uniswap (UNI) at 500%.

Price Action: BTC traded 3.83% higher at $57,397.80 while ETH traded 6.39% higher at $1,795.18 in a 24-hour period leading up to press time.