Since its origins, Bitcoin has maintained a central role in the crypto market. Bitcoin's dominance — that is, the proportion of Bitcoin's market capitalization relative to the total cryptocurrency market — has shown dramatic fluctuations.
In the early years (2013–2016), Bitcoin dominated almost the entire ecosystem, with an average daily dominance between 82% and 93%; it reached an all-time high of 99.1% on May 29, 2013. With the arrival of Ethereum in 2015 and the ICO boom in 2017, that supremacy began to wane. By mid-2017, dominance fell below 50% for the first time (48.5%) and hit an all-time low of 31.1% in January 2018.
During the subsequent 'crypto-winter', Bitcoin regained some of its ground: it closed 2018 with dominance above 50% and recorded levels between 49% and up to 72% in 2019 and 2020.
Then, with the rise of DeFi, NFTs, and altcoins in 2021, dominance collapsed again, falling to around 39% by the end of 2022.
Since 2023, however, Bitcoin has been regaining strength. The annual average dominance went from 45.6% in 2023 to 51.9% in 2024, reaching an average of 59.3% in 2025. On April 7, 2025, Bitcoin even surpassed 60%, reaching 60.5%, something that hadn't happened since March 2021.
In April 2025, dominance approached 64%, driven by the approval of Bitcoin ETFs and growing institutional adoption. In fact, records such as 64.29% (according to TradingView) and 64.85% (CoinTribune) reflect a nearly dominant state similar to that of 2021.
However, in August 2025, for the first time since February, dominance fell below 60%, generating new expectations for a possible recovery of the altcoin market. According to analysts, a weekly close below 60.5% could confirm the start of a market rotation towards altcoins, especially if Ethereum maintains strong volume above $4,000.
