The Cryptoverse had an opportunity this year to see a number of altcoins outperforming the world's number one crypto, – but there are some words of caution out there: it still might be too early for optimism.
“This year's enthusiasm in some altcoins is reflective of a bullish environment, but should subside as bitcoin further distinguishes itself from most of the highly speculative and oversupplied minions,” said Mike McGlone, Senior Commodity Strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, in a recent report. In December, when BTC traded below USD 7,500, he said that "it should be just a matter of time before bitcoin finds USD 10,000," and "bitcoin is capable of adding to its 2019 price appreciation of about 100% in 2020."
At pixel time (13:51 UTC), BTC trades at c. USD 9,791 and is almost unchanged in a day, but is up 5% in a week and 18% in a month.
Now, McGlone said that, among cryptos, bitcoin is winning the adoption race, and added that the optimism surrounding recent rallies is more sustainable in bitcoin than the broader crypto market. The BTC 2020 outlook “remains favorable” and it’s unlikely we’ll see any significant reversal in the past 10 years' drivers, he explained. As a matter of fact, there’s little to push BTC lower from its highest so far, the average annual price of USD 8,500.
"An unlikely force would be needed to knock the first-born crypto off its global-benchmark status and endure a price decline," the strategist wrote.
However, bitcoin dominance, or the percentage of the total market capitalization, dropped by almost 4 percentage points, to 63.5%, this year.
Meanwhile, contributing to BTC’s - not only price rise, but also the endurance of that rise - are gold-like positive fundamentals, rising adoption, supportive macroeconomics, decreasing supply, advent of options that represent bitcoin's transition toward the institutional mainstream, and bitcoin's resemblance to gold “as a quasi-currency […] vs. the more speculative, trade-orientated focus of most altcoins.”
