The dominance of Tether (USDT) increased as of May 2025, although its market share in the crypto market was not as high as during the summer. Within the crypto world, this so-called "dominance" ratio is one of the oldest and most investigated metrics available. It measures the coin's market cap relative to the overall crypto market - for instance, it shows how strong Bitcoin is compared to all the other cryptocurrencies that are not BTC, called "altcoins".

Bitcoin dominance steadily declined in April 2024 to below ** percent, amid rumors of central banks halting or potentially lowering interest rates in the future. Within the crypto world, this so-called "dominance" ratio is one of the oldest and most investigated metrics available. It measures the coin's market cap relative to the overall crypto market — effectively showing how strong Bitcoin compared to all the other cryptocurrencies that are not BTC, called "altcoins". Why dominance matters is because market caps of any crypto can change relatively quickly, either due to sudden price changes or a change of recorded trading volume. Essentially, the figure somewhat resembles a trading sentiment, revealing whether Bitcoin investors are responding to certain events or whether Bitcoin is losing out on functions offered by, for example, stablecoins or NFT tokens. "Dominance" criticism: Ethereum and stablecoin The interpretation of the Bitcoin metric is not without its criticism. When first conceived, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be created and had a substantial market share within all cryptocurrencies? The overall share of stablecoins, such as Tether, as well as Ethereum increasingly start to resemble that of Bitcoin, however. Some analysts argue against this comparison. For one, they point towards the large influence of trading activity between Bitcoin and Ethereum in the dominance metric. Second, they argue that stablecoins can be traded in for Bitcoin and Ethereum, essentially showing how much investors are willing to engage with "regular" cryptocurrency. A rally around Bitcoin in late 2023? By December 2023, the Bitcoin price reached roughly 41,000 U.S. dollars — the first time in 20 months such a value was reached. A weaker U.S. dollar, speculation on decreasing interest rates, and a potential Bitcoin ETF approval are believed to be at the heart of this price increase. Whether this will hold in 2024 is unclear: The monthly interest rate from the U.S. Fed is speculated to decrease in 2024, despite a vow of "higher for longer". In December 2023, the thought of decreasing interest rates and the potential of a Bitcoin ETF fuelled market sentiment towards riskier assets.

A list containing 213 different stablecoins reveals that only *** of them had a market cap of over ** billion USD in 2025. The likes of Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) are tied (pegged) to a "real-world" asset - in their case, the USD - whereas a coin like DAI is connected to the development of other cryptocurrencies. Algorithmic stablecoins have nearly no backing, but use an algorithm that creates more of a particular (crypto) asset within the same blockchain. Stablecoins as a group hit the news frequently in 2022, although only a few featured in a ranking of top 120 cryptocurrencies based on market cap. They are meant to be less volatile than, say, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), or Shiba Inu (SHIB), or other virtual currencies susceptible to significant price swings. The price of the most well-known stablecoin, Tether (USDT), however, consistently hovers around a single USD as is tied (pegged) to the “real-world” U.S. dollar. As stablecoins are connected to physical currencies, they are not the same as Central Bank-Issued Digital Currencies or CBDC like the digital euro or China's e-CNY - which outright digitalize those same currencies.