ETH vs. Bitcoin: Market Dominance Battle Heats Up
Shapella Upgrade Boosts Ethereum: $2,000 Resistance Shattered!
On April 12, the Shapella upgrade went live, allowing the withdrawal of about $222 million worth of Ethereum, which was previously locked in staking. Apart from this, the Shapella upgrade improves ETH’s gas fees and completes Ethereum’s transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol.
The value of Ether has recently exceeded the $2,000 threshold due to the Shapella upgrade, causing a decline in Bitcoin’s market dominance. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the market prevalence of ETH has surged by more than 1.1% within the last 24 hours, reaching 19.8%. Since the beginning of the year, ETH’s predominance has been on the rise, surging by 7.6%, while Bitcoin’s dominance has decreased to 46.3%.
On April 12, BTC’s market share touched 48.8% following its rally to $30,000, marking its highest level since July 2021, when it almost reached 50%. However, since April 2021, BTC has not dominated by more than 50%. Nonetheless, Bitcoin’s dominance is still up by 13.6% since the start of the year, according to TradingView data.
Altcoins Suffer the Consequences
Although the rise in market share for both BTC and ETH is good news for investors, it has come at the expense of altcoins, which have not performed as well during the recent rally of the top two cryptocurrencies. It’s worth noting that Bitcoin and Ether make up around 68% of the total crypto market, while stablecoins account for about 10%. This means that the rest of the altcoin army (about 10,800 tokens according to CoinGecko) accounts for 22% of the entire crypto space.
Market dominance is calculated by comparing an asset’s market capitalization to the total crypto market capitalization, which currently stands at an eleven-month high of $1.33 trillion. All in all, recent developments in the crypto market suggest that there may be more volatility and excitement in the future.
Technical Outlook – ETH/USD
Within the past 24 hours, the value of ETH has increased by 10.25%, reaching an eleven-month high of $2,122 on April 14. It is currently trading very close to that high, at $2,116.
Keep in mind that many of the people who skated their ETH will want to withdraw it, and this may have a negative impact on the price. However, there’s a wave of positivity across the crypto space, which could be attributed to the fact that investors can now stake ETH (and earn rewards) without being locked out of their funds.
The RSI has entered overbought, warning that a possible pullback may follow soon. The levels to watch are $2,000 as support (this could be a good place for the price to bounce in the eventuality of a pullback) and $2,200 as resistance. A touch of the mentioned resistance may trigger a pullback.
