What Is Bitcoin Dominance? How It's Calculated and Used
Bitcoin dominance is bitcoin’s market capitalization as a percentage of the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies. If bitcoin is worth $1.2 trillion and the whole crypto market $2 trillion, dominance is 60%. Traders watch it to see whether money is flowing into bitcoin or into other coins, called altcoins, and because it is a ratio, it can rise on a day when bitcoin’s price falls. Below: the formula, why CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and TradingView publish different figures, how to read a rise or a fall, and what the number leaves out.
Bitcoin Dominance at a Glance
| Topic | Summary |
|---|---|
| Formula | Bitcoin market cap ÷ total crypto market cap × 100 |
| Market cap | Price × circulating supply, for bitcoin and for every coin in the total |
| Where to see it | CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, TradingView (ticker BTC.D) |
| Rising | Bitcoin is gaining share: money moves into BTC, or leaves other coins faster |
| Falling | Other coins, stablecoins included, are gaining share |
| Main caveat | Each tracker counts a different set of coins, so their figures don’t match |
How Is Bitcoin Dominance Calculated?
bitcoin dominance (%) = bitcoin market cap / total crypto market cap × 100
market cap = price × circulating supplyCoinGecko’s methodology page defines a coin’s market cap as its price times its circulating supply, and its global market cap as the sum of the market caps of all the projects it tracks. Dominance is the first number divided by the second.
A worked example with round numbers shows why the ratio needs care. Say bitcoin’s market cap is $1.2 trillion and the rest of the market adds $0.8 trillion: dominance is 1.2 / 2.0 = 60%. If altcoins then gain $0.4 trillion while bitcoin stands still, dominance drops to 1.2 / 2.4 = 50%. Bitcoin’s price didn’t move, yet the indicator fell ten points. The reverse happens too: when everything falls but altcoins fall harder, dominance rises in a falling market.
Why Do CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and TradingView Show Different Numbers?
The numerator is roughly the same everywhere; the denominator is not.
- CoinGecko divides by the sum of every project it tracks.
- TradingView’s
BTC.Ddivides by the combined market cap of the top 125 coins, according to its symbol page. - CoinMarketCap counts tokens and stablecoins as well as coins in its total, as its dominance chart FAQ explains.
On top of that, trackers estimate circulating supply differently for many tokens, and thousands of small, thinly traded tokens carry market caps that are easy to inflate. The gap shows up in history as well: CoinGecko puts bitcoin’s all-time low at around 38% at the start of 2018, while Decrypt reported a low of 33% on January 8, 2018. Compare levels only within one source, and pay more attention to the direction than to the exact figure.
What Does Rising or Falling Dominance Mean?
Read dominance together with bitcoin’s price. The four combinations below are tendencies traders talk about, not rules:
| Bitcoin price | Dominance | Common reading |
|---|---|---|
| Up | Up | Bitcoin leads the rally and altcoins lag |
| Up | Down | Altcoins rise faster than bitcoin, the pattern called altcoin season |
| Down | Up | Money leaves altcoins faster than bitcoin: caution within crypto |
| Down | Down | A broad sell-off, often with money parked in stablecoins |
A rising share is usually read as a preference for the largest and most liquid asset, since smaller coins tend to lose more in a sell-off. A falling share in a rising market usually means traders are reaching for higher returns in riskier coins. Remember that dominance is relative: a surge in altcoin capitalization lowers bitcoin’s share even if bitcoin’s own market cap is unchanged.
What Is Altcoin Season?
Altcoin season is a period when most altcoins outperform bitcoin and dominance falls. There is no official definition. Blockchaincenter’s Altcoin Season Index, for example, declares one when 75% of the top 50 coins, leaving out stablecoins and asset-backed tokens, performed better than bitcoin over the last 90 days. The best-known example is the ICO boom of 2017, when money poured into newly issued tokens and pushed bitcoin’s share to its record low at the start of 2018.
How Do Stablecoins Affect the Reading?
Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC are part of the total market cap on CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, so they move dominance even though nobody buys them to bet on price. When traders sell coins for stablecoins in a downturn, the stablecoins’ share grows and bitcoin’s share can fall without any money going into altcoins. To separate the two effects, some traders also watch stablecoin dominance: TradingView’s USDT.D, for example, is Tether’s market cap divided by the total crypto market cap (symbol page).
How Do Traders Use the Dominance Chart?
- Splitting money between bitcoin and altcoins. Rising dominance is a reason many traders keep most of a crypto allocation in bitcoin; a sustained fall is when they start looking at altcoins.
- Confirming a trend. A breakout in dominance alongside rising BTC prices is often read as a bitcoin-led cycle. Traders pair the chart with trendlines, volume and support and resistance levels, or with the ETH/BTC price ratio, which shows the same shift for the second-largest coin.
- Adding outside context. Dominance only compares crypto with crypto. Interest rates, inflation and other macro data explain moves that start outside the market.
Bitcoin is also the sector’s benchmark: its moves often set the tone for the whole market, which is why many coins are quoted and judged against BTC as well as against the dollar. More context on the forces behind these moves is collected in our crypto markets guides.
What the Number Doesn’t Tell You
- Market cap is not money invested. Price × supply values every coin at its last traded price. A token with a few thin markets can add billions to the total without that much money ever going into it.
- New tokens dilute it mechanically. Every newly listed token with a large supply raises the denominator, even if nobody sold bitcoin to buy it.
- Lost coins still count. Bitcoin’s market cap includes coins whose keys are gone for good, because nothing on the blockchain marks a coin as lost.
- It says nothing about the network. Security, fees and usage are measured separately; hash rate is the usual gauge of how much computing power protects bitcoin.
How Has Dominance Changed Over Time?
For bitcoin’s first years there was little to compare it with. According to CoinGecko, dominance was above 80% in the early market and still above 90% when Ethereum launched in July 2015. The 2017 ICO boom then brought it down to the record low of early 2018, somewhere between 33% and 38% depending on the tracker. For how bitcoin got there in the first place, see the history of bitcoin.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is rising bitcoin dominance bullish?
For bitcoin relative to altcoins, usually yes; for the market as a whole, not necessarily. Dominance also rises when the whole market falls and altcoins fall harder.
Does bitcoin dominance include stablecoins?
On CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, yes: stablecoins are part of the total market cap. That is why a rush into stablecoins can lower bitcoin dominance even when nobody is buying altcoins.
Why does bitcoin dominance differ between websites?
They divide by different totals. TradingView’s BTC.D uses the top 125 coins, CoinGecko all the projects it tracks, and supply estimates for smaller tokens vary from one tracker to the next.
What is a normal bitcoin dominance level?
There isn’t one. The figure has ranged from above 90% to the 30s, and each tracker’s level differs, so compare a reading only with the same source’s history.