# Crypto Dominance

Also known as: crypto market dominance, Bitcoin dominance, BTC.D, ETH dominance, USDT dominance, USDT.D, stablecoin dominance, altcoin dominance.
A Breadth, Sentiment & External Data concept (Crypto-native) in the LuxAlgo Library.

## What is crypto market dominance?

Crypto market dominance is one asset's share of total cryptocurrency market capitalization, charted as an index such as BTC.D, ETH.D or USDT.D and read for rotation and risk appetite. Bitcoin dominance is the best known: Bitcoin's market cap divided by the combined market cap of every coin a data provider tracks. The same arithmetic gives ETH.D for Ether, USDT.D for Tether, a combined stablecoin share for all dollar pegs, and long-tail series such as OTHERS.D. Because market cap is price times circulating supply, dominance is a share of value, not a price.

The measure grew up with the market-cap tables of aggregators such as CoinMarketCap, and one episode fixed its vocabulary. By CoinMarketCap's own account, Bitcoin held about 85% of the market in February 2017; through the ICO boom that followed, new tokens and rallying altcoins swelled the total until Bitcoin's share hit an all-time low of 32.8% in January 2018. That episode is the template for what traders call altcoin season, which Blockchaincenter's Altcoin Season Index formalizes as 75% of the top 50 coins, stablecoins and wrapped tokens excluded, outperforming Bitcoin over 90 days.

Three forces move a dominance line, and only one of them is relative performance. Supply changes the numerator: stablecoin minting and redemption shift USDT.D without any price moving, and token unlocks inflate an altcoin's capitalization. Composition changes the denominator: every listing, delisting and methodology choice alters the total. And stablecoins create a mechanical see-saw. Their capitalization is pinned close to their dollar supply, so when the rest of the market falls their share rises even if no new tokens were issued. That is why USDT.D tends to move opposite to crypto prices, partly through sentiment and partly through arithmetic.

The caveats follow from the construction. Providers track different coin universes and supply estimates, so BTC.D from two sources differs, and levels from different eras are not strictly comparable. Dominance also says nothing about direction: Bitcoin's share can climb in a crash simply because altcoins fall harder. It is relative context to read alongside price, the market-cap counterpart of a [ratio chart](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/ratio-charts/), not a signal in its own right.

## How to read a dominance chart

A dominance series is read against price, never alone. A practical routine:

1. Fix one provider and one series (BTC.D, ETH.D, USDT.D or a combined stablecoin share), since levels do not carry over between providers.
2. Read it against Bitcoin's own chart. Bitcoin rising with BTC.D rising is a Bitcoin-led advance; Bitcoin rising while BTC.D falls means the rest of the market is outpacing it, the classic broadening of a rally.
3. Check the stablecoin share before calling rotation. If BTC.D falls while USDT.D rises, capital is moving into dollars, not into altcoins.
4. Confirm with relative price: ETH/BTC and similar ratios show whether a dominance move reflects performance or only supply and listing changes.
5. Apply ordinary structure to the line itself (ranges, [trendlines](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/trendline/), long moving averages) on daily or weekly data, where dominance trends are slow enough to read.

## How it's calculated

Each coin's market capitalization as a percentage of the total across the provider's tracked universe.

```
MC_i,t = P_i,t × S_i,t
TOTAL_t = Σ MC_j,t, summed over every coin j in the universe U_t
D_i,t = 100 × MC_i,t / TOTAL_t
D_G,t = 100 × Σ MC_i,t / TOTAL_t, summed over the coins i in group G

  P_i,t: price of coin i at time t
  S_i,t: circulating supply of coin i at time t, as estimated by the data provider
  MC_i,t: market capitalization of coin i at time t
  U_t: the set of coins the provider tracks at time t
  j: index over the coins in U_t
  TOTAL_t: total crypto market capitalization at time t
  D_i,t: dominance of coin i in percent (BTC.D when i is Bitcoin)
  G: a group of coins, such as all stablecoins
  D_G,t: combined dominance of group G in percent
  t: time index (bar or day)
```

Dominance changes when prices, circulating supplies or the provider's universe change; only the first is relative performance.

TOTAL2 removes Bitcoin from the total and TOTAL3 removes Bitcoin and Ether, so a coin's share of TOTAL3 ranks it among altcoins only.

## How traders use it

- Altcoin rotation: a sustained decline in BTC.D alongside a rising ETH/BTC ratio and an expanding TOTAL3 is the textbook backdrop for rotating from Bitcoin into large altcoins, and a turn back up in BTC.D is read as rotation ending.
- Risk appetite: USDT.D and combined stablecoin dominance are watched as fear gauges whose range breaks often accompany turns in Bitcoin, cross-checked against [exchange and stablecoin flows](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/exchange-and-stablecoin-flows/).
- Cycle framing: a common narrative holds that Bitcoin leads early in a cycle and altcoins late, with dominance falling into speculative peaks. 2017-2018 fits the script, but there are only a few cycles of history, so it is context for [crypto cycle models](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/crypto-cycle-models/), not a law.
- On LuxAlgo charts: On-Chain Analysis has a Market Dominance mode that divides the charted coin's capitalization by TOTAL for Bitcoin, TOTAL2 for Ether and TOTAL3 for other coins, while Stablecoin Dominance charts each issuer's share of combined USDT, USDC, BUSD, DAI and TUSD supply. The Relative Crypto Dominance Polar Chart uses the word differently, blending dollar volume and volatility.

## Crypto market dominance vs related concepts

- **Ratio Charts** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/ratio-charts/): A ratio chart divides one price by another, so ETH/BTC moves only on relative performance. ETH.D divides Ether's capitalization by the whole market, so it also moves when stablecoins grow, tokens list or supply changes. The ratio measures performance; dominance measures share.
- **Exchange & Stablecoin Flows** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/exchange-and-stablecoin-flows/): Flows track coins and stablecoins moving on and off exchanges, a read of where supply sits. Dominance is a valuation share; stablecoin dominance and exchange stablecoin balances often move together but answer different questions.
- **Crypto Cycle Models** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/crypto-cycle-models/): Cycle models place the market inside a multi-year boom and bust sequence. Dominance is one input to that reading, showing which part of the market leads within whatever phase a model assigns.

## FAQ

### How is Bitcoin dominance calculated?

Bitcoin's market capitalization (price times circulating supply) divided by the total capitalization of every coin the data provider tracks, times 100. TradingView publishes it as CRYPTOCAP:BTC.D; CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko publish their own versions, each over a different coin universe, so use one source consistently.

### Does falling Bitcoin dominance mean altcoin season?

Not by itself. BTC.D also falls when stablecoin supply grows, or when stablecoins gain share because the whole market is dropping. Altcoin season means altcoins outperforming Bitcoin on price, which ETH/BTC and similar ratios confirm directly, so check USDT.D and a ratio chart before reading a BTC.D decline as rotation.

### Why does USDT dominance usually move opposite to Bitcoin?

Tether's capitalization tracks its dollar supply, which changes slowly, while the rest of the market's value swings with prices. In a sell-off the total shrinks and USDT's share rises even with no new issuance; in rallies the reverse happens. The inverse relationship is partly sentiment, capital parking in dollars, and partly that arithmetic.

### Can Bitcoin dominance rise while Bitcoin's price falls?

Yes, and it often does in sell-offs: if altcoins fall further than Bitcoin, Bitcoin's share of the shrinking total goes up. Rising dominance only says Bitcoin is outperforming the rest of the market, not that it is rising, which is why dominance is always read next to Bitcoin's own chart.

## Related concepts

- Liquidation Clusters: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/liquidation-clusters/
- Open Interest: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/open-interest/
- On-chain Valuation Suite: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/on-chain-valuation-suite/
- Crypto Cycle Models: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/crypto-cycle-models/
- Exchange & Stablecoin Flows: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/exchange-and-stablecoin-flows/
- Power-law Growth Curves: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/power-law-growth-curves/
- Whale-wallet Tracking: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/whale-wallet-tracking/
- Funding Rate: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/funding-rate/
- Futures Basis: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/futures-basis/
- Long/short Account Ratio: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/long-short-account-ratio/

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Source: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/crypto-dominance/ (LuxAlgo Library, the encyclopedia of trading & technical analysis). Free to use with attribution: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/license/