Bitcoin Dominance: 13 Years of Daily Readings, From 94.20% to 58.55%
Bitcoin dominance is bitcoin's market value as a percentage of the total market value of all cryptocurrencies a data provider tracks. It rises when bitcoin outgrows the rest of the market, or shrinks less than the rest, and falls when other coins grow faster.
Bitcoin dominance is one number that crypto traders quote every day, usually to decide whether money is moving toward bitcoin or away from it into other coins. It is simple to compute and easy to misread, because it is a share rather than a price. The record below covers every day CoinMarketCap has published since April 2013.
How it works
The formula is one division. Bitcoin’s market value, its price times the coins in circulation, is divided by the total market value of every cryptocurrency the provider tracks. On 25 Sep 2026 that was $1,680.05 billion out of $2,869.43 billion, or 58.55%.
It moves when either side of the division moves at a different speed. If bitcoin and everything else rise or fall by the same percentage, dominance does not change. It rises when bitcoin gains more, or loses less, than the rest of the market, which is why a falling market can lift it.
The rest of the market includes coins that do not move. Stablecoins, tokens built to hold $1, are counted in the total. At 08:31 UTC on 26 Sep 2026 CoinMarketCap put stablecoins at $286.25 billion, 9.93% of its total, so every dollar added to them lowers bitcoin’s share with no change in bitcoin at all. The stablecoins page covers how they hold their value.
Why traders watch it
It is read as a gauge of appetite for risk across crypto. The usual reading is that a rising share means money is favoring bitcoin, the largest and oldest coin, and a falling share means money is moving further out into smaller coins. A long, broad fall in dominance is what traders call an altcoin season, which the altcoins page measures coin by coin.
It is also a check on diversification. A portfolio of several coins that moves with bitcoin every day is less spread out than it looks, and dominance shows how much of the whole market one asset makes up.
Which total is being divided
Each provider counts a different set of coins. At about 08:30 UTC on 26 Sep 2026, CoinMarketCap counted 8,160 active cryptocurrencies and a total of $2.884 trillion, giving bitcoin 58.60%. About four minutes earlier CoinGecko counted 21,602 and a total of $2.892 trillion, giving 58.31%. The two readings are in a CSV of the two providers’ figures.
Taking stablecoins out of the total changes the figure again. On CoinMarketCap’s 26 Sep 2026 numbers, bitcoin’s share of everything except stablecoins was 65.05%, not 58.60%. Before comparing a dominance number with a level someone quotes, check which provider and which total it comes from.
A worked example
Start from CoinMarketCap’s 25 Sep 2026 figures: bitcoin $1,680.05 billion, every other coin together $1,189.38 billion, total $2,869.43 billion. Bitcoin’s share is $1,680.05 billion / $2,869.43 billion = 58.55%. Three hypothetical moves from there show how the share behaves:
- Everything falls 10%. Both parts shrink by the same fraction, so dominance stays at 58.55% while the total loses 10%.
- Other coins fall 20% and bitcoin does not move. The total falls 8.29%, and dominance rises to $1,680.05 billion / $2,631.55 billion = 63.84%. The market fell and dominance rose.
- Bitcoin falls 20% and other coins do not move. The total falls 11.71%, and dominance drops to $1,344.04 billion / $2,533.42 billion = 53.05%.
The second case is the one that trips readers up: a jump in dominance can come entirely from other coins losing value, with bitcoin standing still.
The original data
The data: CoinMarketCap’s daily global market record from 29 Apr 2013 to 25 Sep 2026, with bitcoin’s share computed as total market value minus the altcoin market value, divided by the total (downloaded 26 Sep 2026). That is 4,897 daily readings. On 13 of them CoinMarketCap’s own published dominance field disagrees with its two market-value fields by more than 0.05 points, and on five it reads 0.0, so those 13 days are left out, leaving 4,884. The daily figures, with the 13 days flagged, are in a CSV of daily bitcoin dominance.
For its first four years bitcoin was nearly the whole market. The first reading, on 29 Apr 2013, was 94.20% of a total of $1.58 billion. The highest was 96.63% on 18 Nov 2013, and the share ended 2016 at 87.24%.
2017 took it from 87.62% on 2 Jan to under half by 17 May. That was the first day below 50%. It ended the year at 39.01% and reached its lowest reading, 32.64%, on 13 Jan 2018, as other coins grew far faster than bitcoin.
It climbed back and fell again twice. The share rose to 72.20% on 3 Jan 2021, dropped to 39.47% by 19 May 2021 and ended 2022 at 40.05%. It was back above 50% from 23 Jan 2024 and has not been below it since. In all, it was under 50% on 1,280 of the 4,884 days, 26.2% of the record.
The last 12 months were narrow. From 25 Sep 2025 to 25 Sep 2026 it stayed between 57.67% on 30 Jun 2026 and 60.80% on 10 Oct 2025, and ended at 58.55%.
Dominance and the total market did not move as mirror images. Across 160 complete months from May 2013 to August 2026, the total crypto market value fell in 73. Dominance rose in 41 of those months, 56.2%, and fell in 32. In the 18 months when the total fell by 20% or more, dominance rose in 11 and fell in 7. In the 87 months when the total rose, dominance fell in 45 and rose in 42. The monthly figures are in a CSV of monthly changes.
So a fall in the market leaned toward a higher share, weakly. Slightly more than half the down months lifted dominance, and a little more than half the up months lowered it. That is a tendency, not a rule a trade can rest on.
When it fails
Reading it as a price signal fails. Dominance says which part of the market did better, not whether the market went up. The worked example shows it rising while the total lost 8.29%.
Comparing numbers from different providers fails. A level of 58.60% on one site and 58.31% on another, minutes apart, is not a move. The coin lists and totals differ.
Stablecoin growth distorts it. Money parked in dollar tokens enlarges the total and lowers bitcoin’s share without any trading between bitcoin and other coins.
Old readings count a smaller market. In April 2013 the total was $1.58 billion, so a share above 90% then describes a far smaller and different market than 58.55% does in 2026.
The data has gaps and errors. Even the provider’s own record carries 13 days where its fields disagree, which is why each daily figure here is computed from the market values rather than copied from the published field.
Related
Altcoins measures ten of the largest other coins against bitcoin over one, three and five years, the other side of this ratio. The bitcoin page covers how trading it differs from trading stocks, and stablecoins explains the dollar tokens that now make up close to a tenth of the total. Market cap explains the price times supply figure both sides of the division are built from.
I read bitcoin dominance next to the total market value, never alone. A rising share tells me which part of the market held up better, not whether anything went up, so I check the dollar figure for both before I decide what the move means.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.