in the year 2016 we've seen a lot of change regarding with bitcoin's price value and the market capitalization but I just found out that bitcoin is not the only crypto currency who had made a great change, there are alternate crypto currencies who are also becoming progressive and still innovating I guess . and it seems Monero had changed a lot . take a look to its new price and the year ending market capitalization (
http://www.coindesk.com/not-just-bitcoin-the-top-7-cryptocurrencies-all-gained-in-2016/)
Like that monero rocks. In the early 2016 ethereum was the favorite altoin for many traders but monero has take a head, It is very surprising because in the earlier months i've seen monero it only has a little value on the market but still many people are usung it maybe that's the reason why it has raised and made a lot of change . Monero has also a lot of great feature .
well altcoin market has always been pretty interesting and hot but mostly only in one aspect: trading and not much more.
and when you look at the market capitalization you have to keep into consideration the amount of manipulation that has gone into that, like having a huge supply to create a bigger cap.
and there always have been differences between the coins in the sense that they go up and down based on different reasons. for example Monero went up because it found a real usage apart from just trading but ETH goes up because of pumps.