Ether takes a bite out of bitcoin’s crypto market share, climbing to 20 per cent ahead of the Merge
- Bitcoin’s share of the market by value has slipped to 39.1 per cent while ether now accounts for 20.5 per cent
- Ether is still far behind bitcoin, but an important software upgrade known as the ‘Merge’ is driving up prices
Bitcoin’s dominance, or its share of the crypto market’s market value, has slipped to 39.1 per cent from this year’s peak of 47.5 per cent in mid-June, according to data platform CoinMarketCap. Ether, on the other hand, has climbed to 20.5 per cent from 16 per cent.
The upstart is still a long way from overtaking bitcoin as the No 1 cryptocurrency, a reversal known to aficionados as “the flippening”. It’s made up ground, though; in January 2021, bitcoin reigned supreme at 72 per cent, while ether occupied a slender 10 per cent.
As for price, one ether is now worth 0.082 bitcoin, near December 2021 highs and sharply above the 2022 low of 0.049 in June.
“People are now viewing Ethereum as essentially a safe asset because they’ve seen the success of the network, they think it’s not going anywhere,” said Joseph Edwards, head of financial strategy at fund management firm Solrise Finance.
“There’s a permanency to how Ethereum is perceived in the crypto ecosystem.”