Bitcoin Rally Is Outrunning the Rest of the Market: Here’s Why

In brief

• Bitcoin is up roughly 24% over the past week to near $79,000, its best run since 2023, while the altcoin market grew by less even during the sharpest leg of the rally.
• Bitcoin dominance, its share of the total crypto market, has climbed to around 61%, the opposite of what typically happens when altcoins are genuinely outperforming.
• The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season Index, which measures how many of the top 100 coins have beaten Bitcoin's price over 90 days, sits at 46—well short of the 75 mark that defines an actual altcoin season.

Bitcoin is trading near $79,000, up roughly 24% over the past week and on pace for its best run since 2023. Altcoins, the rest of the crypto market after Bitcoin, are supposed to be the more volatile side of the trade, swinging harder than Bitcoin in both directions. This week, that didn't happen—the broader market grew, just not enough to catch up.

Ethereum led the alt basket, climbing about 30% over the same week to above $2,500. But Total3, the index that strips out both Bitcoin and Ethereum to isolate the rest of the market, cooled after an early burst and now sits around $753 billion—down for the week even as Bitcoin pushed toward $80,000.

Total2, which tracks the full altcoin market, told a similar story. It jumped more than 24% between August 19 and 22 as the initial rally spread beyond Bitcoin, pushing it back above $1 trillion. Since then it's given some of that back, trading near $1.05 trillion and down over the past two days while Bitcoin kept climbing.