What Is Bitcoin Dominance? Meaning, Formula and How to Read It

Bitcoin dominance is the share of the total cryptocurrency market value that belongs to Bitcoin. If every coin in existence is worth $3 trillion in total and Bitcoin alone is worth $1.8 trillion, Bitcoin dominance is 60%. It is one of the simplest numbers in crypto and one of the most quoted, because it shows in a single figure whether money is concentrating in Bitcoin or spreading out into other coins.

Bitcoin dominance today

Right now Bitcoin dominance is 59.4%. Excluding stablecoins, which cannot rise or fall against the dollar, it is 66.2%. Over the past 30 days dominance has moved +0.66 pts and over the past year +1.17 pts; the 12-month range is 57.3% to 60.6%. The figures below refresh every hour.

Bitcoin dominance chart, last 12 months

Hover or tap to read any day. The axis is zoomed to the year’s range, so a move of one or two percentage points is visible; on a 0 to 100 scale the line would look flat, which is why headline charts often understate how much dominance shifts. When dominance falls while Bitcoin’s price is steady or rising, money is flowing into smaller coins, which is what the Altcoin Season Index measures directly.

How Bitcoin dominance is calculated

The formula is short:

Bitcoin dominance = Bitcoin market capitalisation ÷ total crypto market capitalisation × 100

Market capitalisation is price multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. Data providers such as CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and TradingView each publish a dominance figure. Their numbers differ slightly, usually by a percentage point or two, because they do not track exactly the same list of coins and do not always agree on circulating supply. When you compare dominance over time, stay with one source.

What a rising or falling number means

• Dominance rising while prices rise: new money is going mainly into Bitcoin. This is common early in a market upswing, when buyers choose the largest and most liquid asset first.
• Dominance rising while prices fall: smaller coins are dropping faster than Bitcoin. Traders often describe this as a move to relative safety inside crypto.
• Dominance falling while prices rise: smaller coins are outperforming. This is the pattern people call an altcoin season.
• Dominance falling while prices fall: unusual, and normally short lived. It can happen when money moves into stablecoins, which count toward the total market but not toward Bitcoin.

The key point is that dominance is a ratio. It says nothing about whether prices are going up or down. It only tells you who is winning the race between Bitcoin and everything else.

A short history of the number

For its first years Bitcoin was almost the entire market, so dominance sat above 90%. That changed in 2017, when the boom in new tokens pushed it sharply lower, and in January 2018 it dropped below 40% for the first time. It recovered during the long decline that followed. At the start of 2021 it was back near 70%, then fell to roughly 40% within five months as Ether and other large coins surged. From 2023 onward it climbed again and moved back above 60% in 2025, helped by demand for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States.

Two lessons come out of that record. Dominance moves in long swings that last months or years, and sharp falls have tended to arrive late in bull markets, not at the beginning.

Bitcoin dominance and altcoin season

There is no official threshold that starts an altcoin season. Traders watch the direction more than the level: a steady decline over several weeks, together with most large coins beating Bitcoin, is the usual description. Our weekly wrap reports both pieces, the dominance figure and how many of the top 50 coins outperformed Bitcoin over seven days, so you can see whether the two agree. Our live Altcoin Season Index tracks exactly this: the share of the 50 largest coins beating Bitcoin over 90 days, refreshed hourly.

The stablecoin problem

Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC are now worth several hundred billion dollars combined, and most dominance charts include them in the total. Because a stablecoin is designed to hold $1, it does not compete with Bitcoin for returns, yet its growth still pushes Bitcoin dominance down. Some analysts therefore prefer a version that excludes stablecoins, which gives a higher reading for Bitcoin and a cleaner comparison with other volatile coins. Neither version is wrong. You only need to know which one a chart is showing.

Bitcoin dominance excluding stablecoins removes that distortion by dividing Bitcoin’s market value by the market value of everything except stablecoins. Today that figure is 66.2%, against a headline dominance of 59.4%; stablecoins currently make up 10.3% of the market. TradingView publishes the same idea as BTC.D excluding stablecoins.

Limits of the metric

• New tokens are created constantly, which adds to the total market value and mechanically lowers Bitcoin’s share even if no money leaves Bitcoin.
• Market capitalisation can be misleading for thinly traded coins. A token with a tiny float and a high price can show a large value that could never be sold at that level.
• Lost or permanently inactive bitcoins still count toward Bitcoin’s market capitalisation.

For these reasons dominance works best as context next to price, volume and breadth, not as a signal on its own.

Frequently asked questions

What is a high Bitcoin dominance?

In recent years readings above 60% have been considered high and readings near 40% low. In Bitcoin’s early history dominance was above 90%, so the scale has shifted as the market grew.

Does low Bitcoin dominance mean Bitcoin is falling?

No. Bitcoin can rise in price while its dominance falls, as long as other coins rise faster. That is what happened in the first half of 2021.

Where can I check Bitcoin dominance today?

Live prices for the 50 largest coins are on our Markets page, and the dominance figure is recorded each Sunday in the weekly crypto market wrap. TradingView publishes a continuous chart under the ticker BTC.D.

Is Bitcoin dominance the same on every website?

No. Each provider tracks a different set of coins and may treat stablecoins or wrapped tokens differently, so figures usually differ by a point or two.

What is Bitcoin dominance today?

At the last hourly update Bitcoin dominance was 59.4%, or 66.2% excluding stablecoins. The live table at the top of this page shows the 24-hour, 7-day, 30-day and 1-year change.

What is Bitcoin dominance excluding stablecoins?

Bitcoin’s market value divided by the total market value minus stablecoins. Because stablecoins are pegged to the dollar, they inflate the total during sell-offs and make headline dominance look lower than the real Bitcoin-versus-altcoin picture. Today the adjusted figure is 66.2%.

Where can I see a Bitcoin dominance chart?

On this page, refreshed hourly, with a 12-month history from CoinMarketCap global data. TradingView lists it as BTC.D.

This guide is educational. It describes how a market measure works and is not investment advice. Crypto assets are volatile and you can lose money.