Bitcoin Dominance
BTC dominance · Bitcoin market share · BTC.D
Bitcoin's share, in percent, of the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies.
Simple explanation
Background: On CoinGaja's top bar this figure appears as 비트 점유율 ("BTC Dom." on the English pages). Korea's won exchanges have long been more altcoin-heavy than the global market.
Bitcoin dominance shows how much of the whole crypto market bitcoin accounts for: divide bitcoin's market cap by the total crypto market cap and multiply by 100. At 60%, bitcoin makes up 60% of the market's value, and Ethereum, every other coin and the stablecoins share the other 40%. Ethereum or stablecoin dominance is worked out the same way.
Dominance tracks bitcoin's strength relative to everything else, not its price. It rises when bitcoin gains more or falls less than other coins, and drops when altcoins do better. So dominance can rise while bitcoin's price falls, if altcoins fall harder, and drop while bitcoin rises, if altcoins rise faster.
A rising dominance is often read as risk-off, investors leaving riskier altcoins for bitcoin, and a falling one as an "altcoin season", money rotating into altcoins. alternative.me's Fear and Greed Index uses it that way too, counting rising dominance as fear and falling dominance as greed. But this is a rule of thumb, not a law, and dominance alone cannot time a trade.
Stablecoins count in the total. Pegged near $1, they add their full issued amount to the total market cap whatever the mood, so new stablecoin issuance lowers bitcoin dominance even with bitcoin's price unchanged. In a market-wide crash the stablecoin slice does not shrink, so dominance may rise less than you would expect even if bitcoin falls less than altcoins. That is why some people also watch dominance with stablecoins left out.
Providers disagree, because they put different coins in the denominator. CoinGecko adds up every coin it tracks but leaves out wrapped, bridged and staked tokens; TradingView's BTC.D divides by TOTAL, the market cap of the top 125 coins only. The smaller the denominator, the higher the dominance. Supply checks and price methods differ as well, so two sites can be more than a percentage point apart at the same moment. To follow the trend, stick to one source.
Korean won exchanges lean toward altcoins. In the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit's survey of exchanges as of the end of 2021, bitcoin made up 13.6% of the crypto market value on Korean exchanges against 39.2% globally. So when dominance falls in an altcoin rally the Korean market can get especially heated, and premiums on the altcoins Korean buyers pile into can open wider than on bitcoin. When dominance rises and altcoins are weak, the altcoins most traded in Korea can fall harder.
On CoinGaja's top bar, 비트 점유율 ("BTC Dom." on English pages) is bitcoin dominance; hover over it on a PC to see Ethereum's share too. It comes from the same data provider as "Market" (the global crypto market cap) next to it, so other sites may show slightly different numbers. Dominance is a reference for market direction, not a buy or sell signal.
Example
Total crypto market cap $3.00 trillion (about ₩4,200 trillion at ₩1,400) = bitcoin $1.80 trillion + stablecoins $0.30 trillion + other coins $0.90 trillion → dominance = 1.8 ÷ 3 × 100 = 60.00%
Bitcoin unchanged, other coins up 20% → 0.9 × 1.2 = 1.08 → total 1.8 + 0.3 + 1.08 = 3.18 → 1.8 ÷ 3.18 = 56.60%
From the start, bitcoin down 10% and other coins down 20% → 1.62 ÷ (1.62 + 0.3 + 0.72) = 1.62 ÷ 2.64 = 61.36% (bitcoin's price fell, yet its dominance rose)
From the start, only $0.10 trillion of new stablecoins → 1.8 ÷ 3.1 = 58.06% (bitcoin's price unchanged)
From the start, with stablecoins left out → 1.8 ÷ 2.7 = 66.67%
※ Example numbers, for illustration only
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