Bitcoin Forum

Originally published on coinclarity.com (https://coinclarity.com/all-hail-king-bitcoin-why-btc-remains-1/) (this is my own article, but its more of an opinion piece than a news item, so I posted it here -- I'd like any input you may have to give on it).

Bitcoin has tripled in price since the beginning of the year – a move that not a whole lot of people saw coming – yet this time around altcoins have failed to follow in its footsteps… Why? In this article, we take a deeper look into what might be going on in the minds of investors that is preventing the expected “altcoin season” to manifest itself in the wake of bitcoin’s recent rise.


Hail King Bitcoin: Why BTC Remains #1 After All This Time
 
Normally speaking, within the context of the last 5 years or so, bullish momentum for BTC has usually translated into bullish momentum for altcoins. However, 2019 thus far has proven to be a rather lackluster year for most altcoins, as the total market cap of all altcoins has only doubled in comparison to bitcoin’s tripling. This has had the byproduct of helping BTC’s dominance of the total market cap percentage actually increase instead of decrease; the opposite of what happened in 2017.

Indeed, a few altcoins have had rather extraordinary rises in 2019, some even surpassing that of BTC’s. In terms of return on investment (ROI), Litecoin (LTC) is up 233%, Holochain (HOT) is up 223%, and Binance Coin (BNB) is up a staggering 408%. However, the list of coins that managed to beat King Bitcoin is much smaller than the list of coins whose ROIs paled in comparison. Take for example this year to date chart comparing the top 10 coins by market cap (excluding Tether, for obvious reasons).

https://coinclarity.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cryptocurrency-chart-dotcom-768x359.png

All but 2 coins have a lower ROI than bitcoin, and Ripple (XRP) has somehow managed to be negative for the year thus far. Other traditionally “top tier” coins that have significantly underperformed in 2019 include IOTA (MIOTA), losing 1.7%, and Stellar (XLM), down a whopping 18%. No matter how you dice it, altcoins as a whole have not lived up to investor expectations in light of bitcoin’s magnificent rise.

Looking back at the great bull run of late 2017, the crypto market saw a declining dominance of bitcoin in the total market capitalization of all coins. This was due to the fact that even though bitcoin was rising to stratospheric new heights, the altcoin market as a whole was rising even faster. Coins like Ethereum (ETH), Dash (DASH) and NEM (XEM) – among countless others – were experiencing drastic gains in magnitude that BTC had not seen since 2011. Thus, even though the total market cap of all coins was rising, bitcoin’s relative share of this metric was on the decline. This can be visualized in the chart below, which shows BTC’s percentage of the total market cap (top line) sinking throughout the year as compared to other coins.

https://coinclarity.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/total-mkt-cap-2017-768x359.png

In 2019, however, a different picture has emerged: BTC is up, but altcoins as a whole are not up very much at all. This has led to an increasing dominance in the total market cap by bitcoin, rising from 52% on January 1st to 65% today. Likewise, the percentage of the total market cap held by other coins has been on the decline, meaning most of the new money flowing into crypto has been aimed at bitcoin.

https://coinclarity.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/total-mkt-cap-2019-768x363.png

So what gives? Why hasn’t there been a terrific “alt season” yet for altcoins in 2019? Well, a number of theories abound. The one most popular with altcoin holders – particularly those who recently plunged their money into alts thinking that they would be due for a 2017-like boost thanks to a rising bitcoin – is  that there is a lag currently occurring and that a renewed interest in the altcoin markets is just around the corner. Another theory, though not nearly as popular, is that altcoins were simply far too overvalued the last time around. In 2017, there seemed to have been a lot more optimism about what the future of cryptocurrency held. The idea was catching on that the general public may one day soon be ready to adopt not only bitcoin but a whole host of other coins as well, each one being able to fill a particular niche in the online economy.

After years of being overwhelmed by skeptics and a larger feeling of irrelevancy, the attitude of crypto enthusiasts in 2017 – encouraged by a largely prosperous 2016 – was that a blockchain solution could be applied to almost any problem, and that everything could be tokenized. In the fourth quarter of 2017, it truly looked like the sky was the limit for cryptocurrency. Globally-speaking, investors poured billions into highly-questionable projects, hoping to get in on “the next bitcoin.” Pretty much every cryptocurrency with the word “coin” in its name saw a rise, from Potcoin (POT), to Sexcoin (SXC), to PutinCoin (PUT).

The most notorious of coins to benefit from bitcoin’s rising tide was undoubtedly Bitconnect (BCC), which even managed to crack CoinMarketCap’s coveted top 10 for a couple of months. Though 2018 saw a surge of ICO projects that made 2017 look tame by comparison, a damper was put on the mood of crypto investors when a study revealed that up to 80% of the ICOs conducted in 2017 had proven themselves to be scams. Indeed, the market had grown too rapidly, and it was beginning to be impossible to sort out legitimate projects from the illegitimate. Dozens (if not hundreds) of Ethereum tokens that started out with good intentions are now all being thrown into the same branding as scam projects, perhaps even along with Ethereum itself.

To make matters worse, the rate of crypto adoption hasn’t been happening nearly as quickly as the markets are reflecting, which means that an even larger percentage of the total market cap is speculation-based than before. The third and fourth quarters of 2018 saw some major corrections occurring, with several coins having 50-80% of their market cap wiped out. Many of these coins will likely never recover, as perhaps they had simply been over-valued for far too long. Popular crypto Twitter personality Peter McCormack perhaps put it best in a recent tweet (https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1148991855809503233):


After all these years, BTC is still number one; more firmly now than it has been since April 2017. This fact stands even in the wake of potential “Bitcoin Killers” whose popularities have most likely already waxed and waned (the likes of which include ETH, BCH, and most recently, BSV). Bitcoin remains the increasingly-dominant cryptocurrency for some good reasons:

• It is the oldest, most dominant, most respected of its class, having achieved by far the greatest penetration of real world use case scenarios.
• It has some of the most innovative, experienced and well-funded minds working to make it better, allowing for its evolution in the face of stiff competition (Blockstream, Bitcoin Core, Lightning Network developers).
• It is the most trusted and secured of all blockchains, with over a million individuals likely to be mining on its network at any given time.

Of course, anything could happen in the future, and it’s surely possible that one day King Bitcoin will be overthrown by a worthy competitor that is perhaps better suited to meet the public demand for a permissionless, decentralized digital currency. However, for the time being, BTC reigns supreme in not only market cap, but in having the elements required to attract a wide stream global audience — a potential crowd of users that as of yet has been barely tapped into, even after 10 years in the making.

(for full links and image credits please visit the original source (https://coinclarity.com/all-hail-king-bitcoin-why-btc-remains-1/) on coinclarity.com)

Honestly speaking bitcoin is the best cryptocurrency as at now in this industry. Looking at the services and the packages bitcoin offers to investors and traders, there's no doubt that bitcoin is the number one and top leading cryptocurrency.

By and large, no one doubted that bitcoin is the market leader.The season of altcoins has not yet begun due to the fact that the market has not yet matured. But I am sure of the next or in 1 year altcoins will fly to the moon.

Altcoins have existed for nearly a decade. What makes you think they will mature 1 year later? I see a chance for some altcoins to coexist with Bitcoin, but there are far too many and most are simply going to vanish (as many already have). Adopting Bitcoin is smarter than adopting or making your new little variant, EVEN if you are a "large" company or rich man, that doesn't mean anything in this space. Trusting your savings to something that could disappear tomorrow (because the company or rich man that made it/supports it is no more) is way too risky and the only reason Bitcoin has had so much success is that it has demonstrated better credibility than banks and governments. Bitcoin can in fact survive those institutions, it is far easier for a country or corporation to disappear than Bitcoin. Just take a look at history, you will see several corporations and countries that have vanished in the last century.

On the contrary, I believed that the altcoin market have matured. Why? You won't see coins being pump 10x-50x because altcoin traders/investors are getting smarter nowadays. And I bet majority of them have shifted to BTC that's why the price keeps going and dominance levels has increased.

So don't be surprised if many coins will just simply die out and lost to oblivion. Of course there will be time that altcoin will enjoy it's own bull-run, but Bitcoin will remain the dominating coin for many years to come.

that is a very common misunderstanding about bitcoin price and altcoin prices rising together. the fact is that it ALWAYS worked the same way, when bitcoin rises altcoins fall. and this year is no different from others either, the same pattern is being repeated.

the only thing that made that misunderstanding is that people started looking at USD price of altcoins at some point while they are still trading altcoins with bitcoin! so they got the misconception of rise when in fact the altcoins were dropping.

the only reason why it is like this and people call bitcoin "king" is that bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that has actual usages in real world apart from being purely an speculation tool like altcoins.

Exactly. Bitcoin has a proven track record of stability, and unmatched security unlike any other cryptocurrency today. While there are some altcoins that are garbage, there are others which are quite useful like Ethereum. Despite the prominence of a select number of altcoins, Bitcoin's dominance seem to be on the rise. With an ever-growing number of people supporting/using Bitcoin more than any other cryptocurrency today, it's becoming evident that most altcoins will simply vanish within the future.

A good reason why Bitcoin has remained as the "King of Cryptocurrencies" is because it's original in every way. Most altcoins out there are simply copies of Bitcoin with a few tweaks here and there. Not to mention, some of them lack active development and innovation serving only as a means to profit developers themselves. The massive hashrate and nodes across the BTC network speak for themselves.

Nonetheless, Bitcoin will remain as the leader of crypto unless something better comes up that would challenge its very existence. Ethereum and other leading altcoins are far from replacing the pioneer cryptocurrency anytime soon. It's no wonder why Bitcoin is the reserve cryptocurrency of the market. Just my thoughts ;D

The harsh truth is, Bitcoin is not very different from same Litecoin

Or any other altcoin from the top 10. Technically, it is just a matter of personal preferences ("there can be only one") and nothing more. Bitcoin is as speculative as any altcoin out there. So if these preferences change one day, some altcoin will get pumped instead of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin will be stagnating or even going down. Litecoin and its price dynamics prove exactly that

And at its recent highs, it made like 600% gain (from some 22 dollars all the way up to over 140). But what's more intriguing in the context of this opinion piece is the fact it can easily get there again, in a couple of weeks or so. Also, I didn't quite like OP referring to or insinuating Ethereum as scam, which instantly discredits the whole article

Harsh truth is that Charlie Lee sold all his Litecoins at all time high,
and that means that LITECOIN can never be like Bitcoin.

I think it is a bit more complex than this. Other than the fact that most Alt coins have no real "use case", many of them are not as secure as Bitcoin. You would need a lot less hashing power to preform a 51% attack on a Alt coin, than doing the same thing with Bitcoin.  ::)

If any bad actor currently mining Bitcoin wants to ruin some smaller Alt coins, then they can quickly shift some of their hashing power over to these Alt coins and quickly execute a double spend and then go back to Bitcoin. The only reason why they are not doing it, is because most people cannot buy something worth while with these Alt coins.

So most Alt coins are much less secure than Bitcoin and people are hesitant to take that risk.  :P

Bitcoin is the origin and altcoin just being created from bitcoin ( as we all know that crypto code for bitcoin is in public )
The story may be different if the source code isn't public !

Let us summarize all positive points of bitcoin why it is hailed as the number one cryptocurrency. The first reason is that it is the first cryptocurrency being made, without the success of bitcoin being a cryptocurrency other cryptocurrency will not be here. Second is its reputation, bitcoin has proven itself to be a trusted cryptocurrency since its creation and no wonder it is the most used cryptocurrency in the network. Third is that bitcoin is the US dollar of cryptocurrency, the legal tender in the crypto world; just like in the monetary world the basis of value of all monetary currency is the US dollar while in the crypto world it is bitcoin.

You are right. No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is and whether he is still alive (or was alive, to begin with)


But this argument can be easily reversed

And while it is certainly true in respect to PoW cryptocurrencies (well, technically, I don't know whether it is in fact true but let's just assume that you are right), but the PoW model is not the only kind of consensus mechanism in existence today. My point is, Bitcoin is not necessarily the most resistant coin to an external attack (51% or otherwise). There are coins based on other technologies of reaching the consensus in the cryptocurrency network as well as coins not based on the blockchain at all. They may be even more secure than Bitcoin

Nothing surprising at all. The king will always be the king no matter what anyone thinks. It got the advantage of the first cryptocurrency to achieve insane popularity and that won't simply change all of a sudden just because there are better alternatives out there.

Bitcoin is basically the best of everything mixed in one package(Anonymous, Decentralized, New tech etc). No matter how volatile the market is, BTC will always be the safest coin to invest in the short term and the long term.

Agree that the secure aspect is something really important -- as past attempts to show us just how easy it was to 51% attack some of the altcoins, but I still think use case is a far stronger element.

I mean, even if people knew Bitcoin was stronger in security, they wouldn't understand why, and they wouldn't be able to prove otherwise, and they wouldn't care.

And if there were a more secure altcoin (let's say something without PoW so 51% isn't an issue), so what? People still don't have merchs to use, them, it's still worthless, right?

Lots of them already tried and I cant deny that some of them are better in terms of tech and other features but BTC do still remain that been mainly supported as we can see into its dominance and how big the community is.If it isn't the King then it wont be on the top 1 after all these years which 10 years and counting.
Features might be outdated compared to others but the security and its revolutionary tech will always be on top.

That's not really possible at this point. If we put POW to the side, then there are various governance models which inherently are centralized and therefore not secure, and then we have POS that is centralized and not secure.

POW might not be the most pretty form of securing a network, but it has proven to be the most secure one for almost an entire decade now. No protocol has proven itself being more secure.

If you see protocols pretending to be more secure than Bitcoin, they are just trying to mislead noobs into making an investment in their token. It's one big shitshow where noobs are the center of everything because they don't know better.

I think it's not only that Bitcoin is so good (decentralized, secure), but also the fact that altcoins are notoriously bad is contributing to Bitcoin's dominance. Many alts are centralized, buggy, have little developer activity, All they can boast is lower fees, but that's only because no one uses them. It's a serious risk to adopt them as currency because both their value and their networks can crumble suddenly. They so desperately want to be better than Bitcoin, but they can't even come close to being as good as Bitcoin.

your perspective is from a short term day trader that rides the pumps and makes profit. in that view there is not only no difference between bitcoin and altcoins but altcoins are better because they can get pumped hence give a much bigger profit.
but that doesn't matter in general. what everyone looks for is long term reliability and altcoins don't have that. all of them get dumped right after their pumps and go below the price where they started at eventually. meanwhile  bitcoin keeps on rising even after it has big drops like 2018.
otherwise altcoins, specially the top 10, are purely shitcoins: ETH, XRP, BCH, BNB, USDT, BSV are 6/10 of them which are completely centralized. and your LTC example is the exact copy of bitcoin! how do you consider the exact copy to be the same? it is like saying one of those iPhones made by Chinese with Apple logo is same as the real iPhone :D

Both Bitcoin and Litecoin are purely speculative assets. If we cut the crap and face the facts, Bitcoin gets pumped and dumped in pretty much the same way as the last shitcoin out there (you name which). So, in a sense, we are all short-term traders even if you hold some coin with a long-term perspective in mind. If you do and do not hedge, then you are effectively turning yourself into a potential bagholder


Well, it was not me who said that Litecoin is the exact copy of Bitcoin. If anything, Litecoin is Bitcoin's copycat with a few parameters tweaked here and there (no one actually argues with or denies that), but at least it doesn't steal the Bitcoin name or claims to the Bitcoin (unlike Bitcoin Cash and its derivatives). Other than that, iPhones made by Chinese with the Apple logo on them can in fact be real iPhones since this is where iPhones are made

Disclaimer: I don't really know where iPhones are produced as I don't use any

Aside from that institutions are more focus on Bitcoin than altcoins.  So intitutional funds flow to Bitcoin market and this is one huge advantage against altcoin.  The security of its network is also one of the reason why bitcoin remains #1.

From what I can deduce, the rise of Bitcoin always need to the down fall of Altcoins and what we have seen this year was just a repetitive of what we had seen some few.years back, but something shocked me recently that after the rise of Bitcoin the price of Altcoins where down and even when that of Bitcoin was down the Altcoins still go down the more, this made me to ask if the system have change. Bitcoin is the king and all Altcoins knows.

The reason for success of bitcoin are the institutional investors. Many hedge funds and traditional investors have invested in bitcoin as one of the fastest growing investment. They might know nothing about crypto but they knows bitcoin can give them profit. For these people and funds, bitcoin is the only crypto. Though some have looked further onto other possible alts but still Bitcoin reamins the choice for every new person entering the crypto market.

Some of the altcoins are dependent on the bitcoin market so it's very impossible for the altcoins to surpass the bitcoin. The bitcoin will still remain the number one cryptocurrency in the world. Just a fact that can't be edited, being number will exist forever.  ;)

A coin that has been tested over time and still remains king us worth praising. Its been more than 10 years but no cryptocurrency has been able to overthrow Bitcoin in terms of popularity and price.

Not necessarily. For the most part of 2017, BTC market cap dominance was dropping, and this is because altcoins were rising faster than bitcoin. Bitcoin reached its all-time high, and altcoins reached significantly higher highs, in some cases by hundreds of percent.  

Likewise, when bitcoin fell, altcoins fell faster, because they are the riskiest investment in a high risk investment class.

This was always the trend until 2019, when now BTC is rising but altcoins, for the first time, are not keeping up. That's because in 2017, people placed too much confidence in the future of altcoins, in 2019 we are more skeptical, and wiser.

I could remember vividly that prior to bitcoin bull run in that 2017, bitcoin had actually been growing in price too, and it grew from the lowest point whereas was and at a point had a shirt bull run like this that made it about $1000 or so in April 2017, it was after it grew to $1000 that the bull run of bitcoin started and not until during started that we also saw altcoins season began also.

What has happened now that made bitcoin grow from $3000 to its current stage is still about what happened then, although this time around, altcoins bled deeply more than they have ever had in the past, but I believe that once the bull run of bitcoin comes fully, they will mostly follow the same patter too as many altcoins will grow same and bitcoin is growing. It is not just their time yet, but will be soon.

Nothing remains on top forever as they say but I don't see any altcoin that will ever beat the price of bitcoin. Bitcoin is the leading king of all cryptocurrency while others follow. We are hopeful that altcoin will be at the high side soon when bitcoin reaches $25k this year

What accelerated the fall of Bitcoin's dominance was that most altcoins had insane total coin supplies, while only a small portion of these altcoins were in circulation. Basic law of supply and demand then does the rest of the work.

I never liked the way market caps of coins are being calculated when it comes to tokens that have been printed out of thin air and of course the forks. It's impossible for Bitcoin not to lose market cap dominance.

I don't think we'll see a mega altcoin season again similar to the one in 2017, but I doubt that people have become more skeptical and wiser. Once altcoins start increasing harder than Bitcoin we'll see people lose their mind again.

There are visible holes in your theory

As it doesn't explain why we actually saw major altcoins surge way stronger and faster than Bitcoin just after the latter had started to recover in early 2019 (i.e. this year, not 2017). I'm not even talking about Litecoin here with its monumental gains (as I have already mentioned it earlier), but other major altcoins easily outperformed Bitcoin too at first (and their 2019 gains are still not broken by Bitcoin). For example, Bitcoin Cash rose from below 100 dollars to over 550 (which is a 5.5x gain, for starters), Ethereum rose from 100 dollars to over 360 (quite on par with Bitcoin)

But there is a very simple explanation which I already hinted at here and elsewhere. The truth is, there is actually no such thing as lack of confidence in the future of altcoins, there is only lack of pump, which Bitcoin enjoyed till recently (and hopefully, will continue to enjoy in the future), while major players in the altcoin field enjoyed it earlier this year and are now being dumped. There is no reason to think that things are going to remain this way in the future simply because all cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin are pure speculation

Sadly.. no one is realizing that what is going on with central banks and the US dollar and how Btc can solve a lot of fiat issues. Boom / Bust / Boom / Bust, and the rich get richer, and poor get poorer and no one is going to jail for this.

No one is even talking about it. No one is even allowed to check what the Federal Reserve is doing. "But im not an American, why should I care?" -Well unless you live in North Korea, Iran or Cuba, unfortunately, you are shit out of luck since they control all central banks. It used to be Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq too but we all know what happened to them..

Whether people like it or not, bitcoin always remain the king of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin introduced blockchain technology to the massive public and the world is gradually adapting this technology in terms of financial institution and public platforms. Once blockchain technology exist, bitcoin will always be number one..

It's not about bitcoin being the best cryptocurrency at the moment. Bitcoin will always be ranked first above any other cryptocurrency even if they are a lot of crypto coins that have faster transactions speed and easy to use. Blockchain technology is the reason why it will always be first no matter the year era we find ourselves

Altcoins have done well before Bitcoin finally woke up and started to pump like mad.

People keep talking about where altcoin season is, but we may have seen it take place this year already. It just wasn't the big boom explosion people hoped it would be and for that reason didn't consider it an altcoin season. I even remember myself months ago stating that we might be in an altcoin season already with how they had some pretty significant increases across the board.

Relatively speaking, altcoins are still doing well against the us dollar. It's just their Bitcoin comparison that has tanked hard.

You have said it almost all the reasons why bitcoin remains the number one in cryptocurrency. IMO, aside from it was the first coin in crypto space that was discovered, the greatness it brings of the technology given by bitcoin is one of the reason here. And because of that, investors tend to choose to invest in the most established, most reputable and most trusted coin, and that is Bitcoin.

Agree. Bitcoin will always be the "King of Crypto" because of its first-mover advantage in the market. No matter how hard alternative cryptocurrencies try to overcome Bitcoin, they'll never succeed because the pioneer cryptocurrency it's the most trusted digital currency worldwide. Despite the slow transaction confirmation times, and high fees, Bitcoin has a great number of supporters behind it. Being one of the most limited cryptocurrencies in supply, it has obtained a highly valuable price over time.

Not even Ethereum has been able to overcome Bitcoin despite being a highly successful smart contract platform. It shows us that Bitcoin will be here to stay for a long time as the #1 cryptocurrency in market cap, unless a brand new cryptocurrency comes into the scene with a better technology than Blockchain itself. The fact that Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency in the world, has allowed it to be used as the reserve cryptocurrency of the whole crypto market. Without Bitcoin, none of the altcoins we know and love today would exist. It's the original cryptocurrency which started this whole crypto craze.

Nonetheless, it's said that most altcoins will die within the long term. If this becomes a reality, then Bitcoin will remain as the "King of Crypto" indefinitely. With upcoming improvements such as the Lightning Network (for instant and near-free transactions), Schnorr Signatures, and Sidechains, no other cryptocurrency will be able to stand against Bitcoin within the future. Just my thoughts ;D

Yes. Bitcoin is not very different from Litecoin. Wait... that is not the right order. "Litecoin is not very different from Bitcoin" sounds better. Bitcoin was invented in 2008 and was first mined in 2009. Litecoin came in to existence three years after that, and there is hardly any difference between these two coins as far as the logic and usage is concerned. But the most important fact to remember here is that Bitcoin was an original innovation, while Litecoin is a copycat. Now tell me why anyone should invest in a copycat while discarding the original?

The second part of your post is correct. At times, investing in Litecoin can be extremely profitable for the users. I myself got 1,200% returns during 2013 after investing in Litecoin. That said, I don't think that Litecoin is the most promising coin out there right now. There was a spike owing to the block reward halving and now the prices will crawl back to the previous levels.

Which of the halving spike, are you talking about this recently concluded halving or the previous one before this, because I did not see any spike in the price of Litecoin on this recently concluded one, the only tiny surge that I saw was as a result of the increase in price of bitcoin too during that time, which I would call a coincidence, so Litecoin for me never responded to the halving.

I think you are right, people are beginning to reason well too that why would they invest in a copycat of a program when the original one as we know will always be better than the clone, and aside this, altcoins are losing it generally now as many investor would rather have majority of their investment in bitcoin and share little with altcoins, so I don’t see bitcoin dominance becoming over for now.

Define invest here

If by investment and investors you actually mean speculation and profiteers, these folks don't care what asset to invest in as long as it gives them enough opportunity to earn dough. Litecoin fits this scheme perfectly which you seem to admit and agree with in the second half of your reply. The point is, both Bitcoin and Litecoin are speculative assets, so there is not much difference between the original and the copycat in this regard. And while you are busy defining the invest thing, also don't neglect to define "the most promising coin" thing as well since different people may have very different ideas on what a coin may "promise" them (and how much, for that matter)

Why BTC remains number 1? Because bitcoin is the most popular coin in this industry. Many investors have already put their trust in bitcoin rather than on any other investment. Bitcoin helps the community and give an opportunity for individual who cannot find job nor make his own profits. Bitcoin is awesome, that is why it is coined the King.

Exactly. So far, there's no other cryptocurrency like Bitcoin in terms of development and innovation. The first-mover advantage has allowed Bitcoin to gain massive adoption within the mainstream world. Not to mention, it's the most secure and reliable cryptocurrency in existence. It's that reason why, Bitcoin has remained as the #1 cryptocurrency in market cap. The only way Bitcoin will fail, would be if another breakthrough technology emerges which overcomes all of its limitations.

With a limited supply, and a wide user base, it's been recognized as the reserve cryptocurrency of the market. Whenever Bitcoin rises in prices, most altcoins seem to follow its footsteps. If we were to choose a true contender of Bitcoin over the long term, that would be Ethereum. This is because, ETH has a long record of development and innovation over time just like Bitcoin. The development team and community has worked hard to make Ethereum a solid smart contracts platform for the world. That's the reason why ETH has remained second next to Bitcoin in terms of market cap.

Nonetheless, it seems very unlikely that Bitcoin's "throne" will be taken by another cryptocurrency anytime soon. The pioneer cryptocurrency is too big to fail with an ample amount of users, a massive hashrate, the most adoption from merchants worldwide, and so on. Which is why, I believe that Bitcoin will continue to be the "King of Crypto" for many years to come. Just my opinion :)

Being a part of the volatile market that Bitcoin belongs to, people still seem to lay their trust in BTC and invest their money in it faithfully.
It is not surprising because of how dominant Bitcoin has been over the years. 2019 seems to be a special year for Bitcoin as well. Repeating the bullish trend of 2017, Bitcoin is expected to reach as high as $20,000 by the end of 2019 or the beginning of 2020.
The ROI that Bitcoin has delivered to investors is also another driving factor responsible for its constant rise.

If there is any altcoin that is going to surpass bitcoin, then they have to do more and that might even take years. Ethereum is the one who is the closest to it since it just got released last 2015 but already knows how to play around this market.

I think what affects the most is the fact that bitcoin is the first, which made it became well known by people than others cryptocurrency, and thus made it became number one. If we're talking about crypto, of course bitcoin is what it will come to our mind in the first place. Not others like ripple, eth, and such. Many people that took interest in bitcoin is what made bitcoin value is so high, and even after all these years many people only have interest in bitcoin, not other cryptocurrency. Including me, actually. As long as there's no other coin that can surpass bitcoin popularity, btc will remain number one.

price-wise it is simply impossible for an altcoin that has unlimited supply with currently huge circulating one to even come close to half a bitcoin price let alone surpass it in any ways. the only reason why ETH still doesn't have a value equal to Dogecoin is that it was released in 2015 and got its real hype in 2017 (recent history).

technology-wise a coin like ETH that has no real world application can never grow because its main purpose remains speculation inside exchanges and these coins don't have long term growth.

Ethereum actually almost over-took Bitcoin at one point in market cap. I remember that during the Segwit debate and all that UASF days people were starting to lose trust in BTC and started to buy ETH instead and if I recall the market cap came very close of each other, but it never actually exceeded BTC market cap.

Now its pretty far away from overtaking Bitcoin. Most due to all those ICOs which are probably still wanting to cash out and there are probably tons of people who bought ETH at like $1000 a coin who just want to break-even with their investment. Will be a while before the 2 ever become close in market cap again.

The closest that ETH got to BTC was on July 13th 2017. At that point, Bitcoin had a market share of 39.30% and Ether was close behind with 33.79%. The fightback looked remarkable back then, because just a few months back Ripple had pushed Ether to the no.3 position. Sometime during May 2017, Ether regained the no.2 spot, and during the next two months came so close to toppling BTC from the no.1 position.

But back then, everything was favoring Ether. The ICOs were at their peak, and Bitcoin was weakened considerably by the forking of Bitcoin Cash. Still from the charts, you can see a considerable 5.5% gap between BTC and ETH at the closest point. And during the next few years, its biggest strength (ICOs) would prove to be its biggest weakness as well.

That's yet another nail into the market cap coffin

Yes, Ethereum might have come close to Bitcoin in terms of their market cap numbers, but how many coins of both camps have been actually traded and what percentage did that make of the total supply back then? It may turn out that we must divide the Ethereum market cap by a factor of ten to make a coherent and meaningful comparison between the two coins and their market share. To put it in more mundane terms, Ethereum was still far behind Bitcoin even when it was at its top in the summer of 2017


It was far from overtaking Bitcoin no matter when unless we take the market cap metric seriously

That's certainly true, mate. I believe that Ethereum's biggest strength was the ICO trend where it lead the cryptocurrency towards new ATHs in price. It was believed that it would surpass Bitcoin in market cap, because of its large prominence within the mainstream world. Right after the SEC started cracking down on ICOs, the hype was over, resulting in loss of interest among people within the mainstream world. Nowadays, Ethereum is far behind Bitcoin in market cap, making it relatively impossible to replace Bitcoin as the #1 cryptocurrency of the world.

It's no wonder why Bitcoin has retained its place in the market, as people trust it more than any other cryptocurrency on the market. Its top-notch development and innovation, has lead it towards new ATHs in mainstream adoption. Comparing it against other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has real uses as a store of value that's built to last for a very long time. Ethereum and other alternative cryptocurrencies greatly lack mainstream adoption, despite being actively developed and maintained for quite some time. They're much more volatile than Bitcoin itself, and they lack a branding that's trusted by many people worldwide.

Nonetheless, Bitcoin's commitment towards censorship-resistance has attracted many people worldwide. It'll always be the #1 cryptocurrency in market cap, no matter what. The only way it could be replaced is if another cryptocurrency proves to overcome all of BTC's limitations gaining massive adoption within the mainstream world. Just my thoughts ;D

Bitcoin didn't become number one coin over night. It took many years to achieve the level of acceptance, a umber of users, trust and price value that has now.
There are too many coins at the market and many aim to take Bitcoin's place but that is not so easy. I don't see such potential in any other coin and success for any of them would certainly not come over night.

The reasons why bitcoin still stays at the number place can't be explained in just a few words or page. But in summary bitcoin is doing everything better than the rest of the coin, it had a head start before any other coin,

Bitcoin is a king, like a country, the founder of that country is always considered the king and maybe if bitcoin is deposed, everything will turn to a new page!

If bitcoin is disposed and people allowed it, majority of us will go back to square one, square one in the sense that we will not be able to make that easy transactions again for our businesses, without involving people like swift, PayPal and most of these expensive money agents, secondly, our transactions will not be easy to make across the bother.

Ever since bitcoin has been in existence, it has been quite easy for people to make transactions across border without much barrier, and that was intention of bitcoin even though we have many people like drug dealers who are using it for illegal activities, but normally, it is meant to make things a bit easier for business people for them to be able to make payment to other of their suppliers easily.

No one could ever explain it anyway if they have to and all we have to do is to follow it since Bitcoin is already here and it is the father of all cryptocurrency. A lot of altcoins were trying to copy it but they failed that's why we should believe how strong this cryptocurrency because we have a lot of people adopting it. No wonder why Satoshi is nowhere to be found since Bitcoin is uncontrollable.

In terms of technology, Bitcoin is an over-engineered product selling at premium. It hides weakness in sophistication. People fiercely debated block size increase from 1 MB to 8 MB vs. 2-4 MB and SegWit/off-chain. The difference to user is very little. It's proven to be be true. BCH transaction number is low. BTC SegWit adoption is slow and low. Lightning Network seems dead. Bitcoin is able acquire some kind of intelligence, self-consciousness. It could be a form of self-conscious AI. It is able to live on its own. It feeds on its believer. It anoints new leaders to be its slaves. Despite these or maybe because of these, Bitcoin is a decent financial bet.

I see Bitcoin leaders constantly pronounce their belief and optimism on Twitter. It's so tiring to be like Bitcoin. I run an altcoin, https://bitflate.org. I think my altcoin has some interesting differentiation and adds value to crypto space. The technology is permissionless and open source. I can do what I want with it. I don't argue with people on the internet. I have a life to live. Bitcoin is the king because we are either too lazy or too afraid to do something.

Btc remains because l believe this will be our currency to the whole world because it has the highest value of all tokens. This is what people attracts more especially investors and traders anf supporters. That's why its getting popular to all over the world. Bitcoin will be the best tool to help wash out povert all over the world.

Compare to all cryptocurrency, bitcoin is surely number one. Nothing to argue about that. Bitcoin been through a lot for all those years and it just shows that bitcoin survived everything it went through. I agree that it's because bitcoin has already gain the trust of most users and that it's hard to break. Until now, no altcoin can beat bitcoin. We never know in the future but I still believe that bitcoin is capable for surviving more years and can even offer more when people started to adopt bitcoin.

Bitcoin is likely to be the king of the crypto market for a long time, unless of course it is moved by some new currency from a well-known and powerful company, which is also unlikely

Exactly. In its very beginnings, Bitcoin wasn't even traded on the crypto market. There were no exchanges, making it difficult to acquire by people in the mainstream world. Because of this, not many people were aware of crypto. Trades were only performed in a P2P fashion via this very forum, or in person. Once Bitcoin became traded on the market it gained traction quickly, because it was the only cryptocurrency available. A few years later, altcoins started to emerge. Namecoin was the first altcoin in existence changing the world of crypto in its entirety.

Given the number of years that has passed, Bitcoin has gained trust and a good reputation within the mainstream world. It's been proven to be the most secure blockchain to date, despite being very energy consuming. Bitcoin took a lot of time and effort to become the cryptocurrency it is today. No matter if other altcoins are superior than it in terms of scalability and features, they cannot obtain the same level of trust that Bitcoin has. People prefer to deal with Bitcoin than any other altcoin for a very good reason. With widespread acceptance of businesses and merchants worldwide, it has become evident that Bitcoin is the "King of Crypto". Even altcoins depend on it as a reserve currency within the market.

Nonetheless, it's true that altcoins may need a lot of effort in order to take Bitcoin's place as the #1 cryptocurrency of the world. The altcoin which seems to be very close of "flipping" Bitcoin is Ethereum. After all, it's been the most actively developed and maintained altcoin in existence. Compared with Bitcoin, it has a large number of supporters behind it with many use cases for the mainstream world. Hence, if ETH continues to grow there could exist a possibility that it could take Bitcoin's place within the future. Just my thoughts ;D