Bitcoin FOMO behaviour leaves altcoins in the dust

During the last week, Bitcoin moved sharply and hit the $45,000 mark, but lost steam once again to below $43,000.

Still, the most popular token’s price stood solid while altcoins endured something of a bloodbath during the last seven days.

All major altcoins slid following a dip in the broader market with the total capitalisation of the crypto market sinking by more than 3% to $1.9tn.

The altcoin slide led to an increase in the Bitcoin dominance index by a half of a percentage point to 42.47%.

The dip came as broader markets reacted to US inflation hitting a four-decade high of 7.5% in January.

It seems a lot of energy was lost in trying to keep Bitcoin safe with traders attempting to catch every bit of its momentum, consequently moving capital from altcoins to Bitcoin.

This FOMO behaviour often leaves altcoins in the dust, causing temporary underperformance and short-term mispricing. Also, Bitcoin is still by far the most popular cryptocurrency and many major mainstream financial institutions are jumping into the crypto bandwagon with Bitcoin.

As for the other altcoins, in the last seven days, Shiba Inu, Solana, and Cardano’s respective tokens lost value following reports that Russia may soon invade Ukraine.

Solana (SOL) plummeted by 20.39%, Shiba Inu (SHIB) went down by 11.83%, and Cardano (ADA) had fallen 12.17%.

Other weekly losers were Polkadot (DOT) which plunged 16.23%, Cosmos (ATOM) by 15.70% and Chainlink (LINK) that went south by 17.31% at the time of writing.

Still, Cardano and Polkadot ETPs debuted on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange today through its subsidiary Valour.

That reversed the direction a bit so the price of ADA and DOT rose by 0.16% to $1.04 and 3.67% to $95.54 respectively.