Ethereum Reclaims 10% Market Dominance as ETH Outperforms Top Cryptocurrencies
Ethereum’s market dominance rose above 10% on Tuesday after weeks below that level, while the token outperformed every other top-10 cryptocurrency with an almost 9% gain in the last seven days.
Data from CoinGecko shows Ethereum’s market cap at around $233.2 billion, with the total crypto market up nearly 2% and valued at just over $2.34 trillion. That put ETH’s share of the market at slightly more than 10%, a figure BIT analyst Markus Thielen described as a “psychologically important” threshold in a July 21 update.
Thielen noted that when ETH dominance rose in the past, it often coincided with conditions favoring bullish traders. At the time of writing, ETH had gained over 4% in 24 hours, but according to the analyst, there was “no immediate catalyst” behind the rise.
Some big names in the market appear to have picked up on the changing mood. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes spent over $2.5 million on 1,332.5 ETH earlier today, his second multi-million dollar splurge on the token in a week. He had earlier bought 1,293 ETH for a similar amount on June 16.
BIT’s weekly market watch, also published on July 21, argued that last week’s softer-than-expected US inflation data reversed a rough start to the week, one that had briefly pushed Bitcoin (BTC) under $62,000 after renewed US-Iran conflict. BTC closed that week above $65,000, up almost 4%, while ETH added over 7% in the same period, ending above $1,900 and marking its second consecutive week of outperforming Bitcoin. This lifted the ETH/BTC ratio to 0.0293 from a June low of 0.0264.
At the time of writing, ETH was trading well over $1,900, having gained about 8.8% in one week and more than 12% in the last 30 days. That weekly performance was the best among the top ten digital assets, with XRP and BTC following closely (XRP up over 6%, BTC up about 5.7%). ETH’s daily trading volume surged more than 31% to hit $11.6 billion.
Beyond spot prices, BIT’s report said perpetual funding rates have remained close to neutral despite ETH’s gains, while implied volatility stayed subdued. Institutional investors appeared to favor call options, with buy-call activity accounting for more than three-quarters of Ethereum block trades, while retail participants largely opted for call spreads to gain upside exposure with limited cost.