Max Keiser, the U.S. economist, broadcaster and cryptocurrency enthusiast, believes ether could be heading for a near halving in its value as rival bitcoin’s dominance of the cryptocurrency market increases.
In a Twitter posting on Friday, Keiser noted a new all time high for the bitcoin hashrate, which is powered by an increase in the energy and resources needed to mine the cryptoasset, thus underpinning the price.
New ATH for #Bitcoin hashrate as alts die and players position themselves strategically ahead of BTC’s move back to 85% dominance. BCH and BSV are particularly vulnerable. ETH heading back to $90.
— Max Keiser, tweet poet. (@maxkeiser) August 30, 2019
Keiser suggested that the altcoin market was dying as investors were positioning themselves for the growing dominance of bitcoin – which he believes will move to an 85% share of the market.
Vulnerable Rivals
Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV are particularly vulnerable, he said, while he expected ether to head back to $90. Ether was trading at around $170 against the dollar on Friday. However, ether has seen rapid declines in recent weeks. Since hitting its most recent cyclical high of $365 on June 26 it has fallen 53%.
There could be several reasons for ether’s decline that go beyond Keiser’s bitcoin dominance positioning theory. On Thursday, Trustnodes reported that ether’s total supply has nearly doubled since 2016 as adjustments to the mining difficulty levels have been twice delayed.
While bitcoin’s market dominance by the simple measure of market capitalization is currently nearly 69%, some research suggests that when market liquidity – volumes and ease of trading – is taken into account, bitcoin’s dominance is closer to 90%.
