Bitcoin is still the king of the cryptocurrency world, with almost every altcoin heavily tied to its price. Coinage CEO Chad Pankewitz, however, believes the market needs to move beyond Bitcoin if it is to have a sustainable future.
Future of Trading Digital Assets
There are dozens of exchanges currently open to the public and almost all of them use Bitcoin as a trading pair to hundreds of other altcoins. Using Bitcoin is often the only way to purchase many other cryptocurrencies, especially projects that have yet to gained widespread recognition.
Coinage CEO Chad Pankewitz thinks that a Bitcoin decoupling needs to happen sooner rather than later. He told Venture Beat:
From a long-term perspective, we want to take a stand, and the first steps toward moving the market away from being tied to Bitcoin…There are thousands of projects in cryptocurrency – distributed apps, blockchain use cases, and smart contract platforms across every industry vertical. Each has their own project, company, team, utility, levels of funding, traction, community, and business model. We believe these companies’ valuations should not be tied to Bitcoin and should be valued on their individual merits, much like a traditional stock market.
Bitcoin is a critical part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It is the most secure, valuable, and traded coin on the market. In many cases, it is the only digital currency that people outside of the community have ever heard of. Bitcoin is essentially the poster child of the entire cryptocurrency movement and a large crash would send shock waves throughout the entire space, bringing most altcoins down with it.
What Would Replace the King of Crypto?
Many altcoin supporters are anxiously awaiting the “flippening” – an event that happens when another coin manages to surpass Bitcoin in market capitalization and other metrics. Community members from other popular coins like ETH and BCH have been expecting this for over a year. While it has not happened yet, Bitcoin’s market share is dropping across the market.
A move away from Bitcoin toward using USD-backed tokens such as Tether or TrueUSD – or even the Dollar itself – could bring benefits for exchange customers – especially inexperienced ones:
When trading and investing, it is much easier to understand numbers in dollar terms versus Bitcoin terms. It is crazy that we are made to figure out these difficult decimal numbers, such as BTC 0.0014758, when trading. We want to bring simplicity back to trading crypto…By having one stable side to the trading pair, it allows the exchange to manage risk better and offer customers more advanced products, margin trading on alt-coins, short selling, and — in the future — derivatives on a wider range of assets
There are only a handful of exchanges that offer fiat to altcoin pairs, and the selection of altcoins that they do offer is limited. Outside of the top five cryptocurrencies, you’re going to have a hard time finding a way to buy directly with fiat.
What do you think about the current state of cryptocurrency trading? Does the market need to move beyond Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Bitcoinist Archives