Bitcoin BTC +0.57% ’s market dominance, the market share of bitcoin’s market capitalization relative to the total market capitalization across crypto tokens, shot up to 52.92% over the weekend, climbing up from below 50% at the end of May. 

Bitcoin is the largest crypto asset by market cap, and its market dominance has not fluctuated much over the past year. It has stayed within the range of 44% and 53%, boosted since last summer as the excitement around spot ETF approvals lifted bitcoin relative to its peers.

Bitcoin’s dominance reached 52.86% in April, its highest level since April 2021. This was the culmination of bitcoin’s dominance continuing to grow after ETF approval and a sharp uptick in bitcoin’s position relative to other assets amidst fear of a wider conflict in the Middle East. 

After that, while bitcoin’s dominance remained elevated relative to the level of late 2021 to early 2023, its grasp on the market began to fade as other assets like memecoins began to catch on. Ether also got its moment to shine with its spot ETF approvals on March 23.

But bitcoin’s dominance shot up again this weekend, reaching a new high not seen since April 2021, the start of the first major bull market, which helped propel other crypto assets to sizable market caps.

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Bitcoin itself has not been doing that well for the past few days, dragging a bit in the wake of the Fed revealing it only anticipated one rate cut in 2024 and down 5.3% for the past week. Yet many tokens were left worse off. Most large caps fared okay, but some smaller tokens (although still with market caps over $1 billion), like FLOKI, STRK, IMX, and FIL, are down double digits over the past seven days.

Bitcoin, like in the case of the Middle Eastern conflict, was better positioned to weather the downturn in risk assets. While all cryptocurrencies typically get grouped into the risk asset category (although some argue bitcoin is a safe haven), bitcoin is likely to be considered less risky than many of its counterparts, which have not seen the same level of regulatory approval and institutional adoption.

Bitcoin’s dominance is already dropping, though, as other tokens have begun to rebound from the Fed news.

This is an excerpt from The Block's Data & Insights newsletter. Dig into the numbers making up the industry’s most thought-provoking trends.