We have probably all heard the term, and the past days we have most certainly experienced it.
The altcoins follow Bitcoin every time it spikes and dips. The biggest reason for this is "The Bitcoin Standard". Bitcoin is still by far the most valuable cryptocurrency, the favorite coin to pair with on exchanges etc. However, in the last couple of weeks it has been more and more clear that Bitcoin just might be overtaken as the most valuable currency. At first people expected that Ripple could have done it if Coinbase had pulled through with the listing, and in the past week Ethereum has bounced back, and are by many considered likely to outgrow Bitcoin percentage wise in 2018. Do you guys think this will make people lose confidence in Bitcoin as "King of Crypto", and make the other currencies less volatile when Bitcoin has big swings in value?
Personally I think it would do more good than bad if Bitcoin had less effect on the rest of the market.
Big swings are what made people like BTC. Don't we all like to profit when btc swings big up and downward?
No doubt ETH and ripple could valuable in the next few years but then lets not forget that when it comes to popularity its still btc. Its accepted even by the fastfood like McDonalds which is also the reason why if we introduce crypto to someone we start with BTC.
Don't forget that big companies recently stopped taking BTC as payment. No bridges were burned, but the cost of BTC transactions was too high, and the speed was too slow. I am not talking about BTC losing its importance though, as it will still be the go-to place for storing value long term. But I am talking about whether BTC would be more stable if it wasn't the leader in terms of value, exchange pairings etc., and therefore less volatile than it is now. At the same time the currency taking its place as leader would become more volatile, as it would become the new standard.
