Only 6 out of 50 altcoins outperformed Bitcoin this year.
Among the top 50 tokens by market capitalization, only six altcoins managed to top Bitcoin (BTC) this year as Bitcoin's dominance hit a three-year high over the weekend.
Memecoin Dogecoin (DOGE) stands as the best performing altcoin in the top 50, posting a year-to-date gain of over 77% according to TradingView data – from $0.09 on January 1st to $0.15 according to TradingView data at the time of publication. .
The remaining players include fellow memecoin Shiba Inu (SHIB), Bitcoin smart contract network Stacks (STX), Binance's BNB (BNB), Ethereum Layer-2 Network Mantle (MNT), and GPU-sharing blockchain Network Render (RNDR).
Bitcoin has risen from $44,100 on Jan. 1 to $65,000 at press time, a 54 percent year-to-date gain.
Many attributed the rise to 10 U.S.-traded bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that faced consistent institutional inflows after a rate hike approved in January, which generated more than $12 billion in accumulated net income, according to Farside Investors.
In particular, Bitcoin dominance rebounded sharply from a market-wide sell-off amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, sending Bitcoin dominance to a three-year high of 56.5% on April 13.
The Bitcoin dominance measure refers to the ratio of Bitcoin's market value compared to the total market value of other cryptocurrencies.
As Bitcoin recovered its ground in the following days, most of the smaller altcoins failed to find their footing and fell sharply in value.
Alternative layer-1 network Aptos (APT) and decentralized crypto exchange Uniswap (UNI) led the decline in the market value of the top 50 tokens, posting losses of 35% and 31% in the past seven days, respectively.
Related: Bitcoin's ‘Regular Drop' Leads to $256M Long Liquidation – Analysts
In an April 14 investment note published by Cointelegraph, IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore said bitcoin looks set for a fourth weekly decline, with no further Fed rate hikes weighing on crypto investment sentiment.
Despite the current negative-leaning sentiment towards risk assets, Sycamore predicts that Bitcoin will gradually climb towards $80,000 in the coming months – depending on whether it can hold above the key support mark.
“Bitcoin supply remains above the previous one [$60,000/$58,000] A support zone, we expect growth to continue to $80k, Sycamore wrote.
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