Altcoins Continue To Perform As Bitcoin Struggles To Claim $50k

Bitcoin (BTC) continues to look for direction, but as this occurred, Ether (ETH) and altcoins bounced higher from the Thursday sell-off. Dogecoin (DOGE) shocked investors with its 47% rally that kicked off after Coinbase announced that it would list DOGE in the coming months. DOGE’s price also rallied after Elon Musk tweeted that he was “working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising.”

While many altcoins have seen double-digit gains during the recovery, the price of Bitcoin has continued to languish near the $50,000 level as whale wallets containing at least 1,000 BTC have declined by 4.7% compared to the previous month, indicating possible profit taking or a rotation into different assets.

Data from TradingView shows that while the Bitcoin recovery has been muted, demand for Ether led to an 18% rally as the altcoin notched an intraday high at $4,173 on Friday.

Gains in the top altcoin come amid mixed fundamental developments, with data from Glassnode showing that wallets holding at least 32 ETH have been steadily declining in recent months, which suggests that fewer people are interested in becoming “full validators” for the network’s upcoming proof-of-stake blockchain.

While the debate about whether or not the market is officially experiencing an altseason rages on, one of its trademark characteristics is a sideways trading Bitcoin that leads to traders refocusing their attention on the altcoin market and leading to a decline in Bitcoin dominance.

One of the breakout stars of 2021 is Polygon (MATIC), which has seen its price rally 60% over the past 24-hours to reach a new record high at $1.75.