Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin Lead Open Interest Charge Among Altcoins

• Bitcoin’s dominance in the derivative market dips below 40%.
• Ethereum holds steady but loses dominance, while Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin lead the altcoin charge in open interest.
• Altcoins now command two-thirds of the futures market volume against Bitcoin.

Data has shown that the altcoin market is fast stealing the spotlight from Bitcoin, as more funds now go into derivative contracts of alternative cryptocurrencies than BTC. In particular, market statistics from the derivative market tracking portal Coinalyze indicated that Bitcoin’s dominance in terms of Open Interest (OI) has waned.

A month ago, the OI in Bitcoin, representing the cumulative sum of active Bitcoin futures or options contracts within the market, was at $10.16 billion. At the time, the OI for the altcoin market, excluding Ethereum, stood lower at $8.10 billion. This implies Bitcoin wielded a dominance of 42% as of November 27.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s open interest dominance further heightened to 44%, reaching a peak dollar value of $11.43 billion early this month. However, the trend has shifted significantly, with Bitcoin’s prominence falling behind altcoins. 

Specifically, Coinalyze data indicated that Bitcoin’s dominance in the derivative market has dropped to 39% as of December 26. In parallel, altcoins now command 41% of the open interest, with $12.22 billion invested in derivative contracts.

Futures Market Dominance by Open Interest | Coinalyze

Notably, Ethereum, which had a dominance of 23% in the futures market early this month, has similarly fallen behind to 21%. Yet, the dollar of the funds committed to the Ethereum futures market increased from $5.95 billion to $6.26 billion.

Furthermore, Coinalyze data shows that, when measuring futures market dominance by volume, altcoin completely absorbs Bitcoin and Ethereum. Precisely, altcoins now wield a 66% dominance with a $54.33 billion volume compared to 22% recorded for Bitcoin and 12% for Ethereum.

Futures Market Dominance by Volume | Coinalyze 

Notably, the altcoins leading the open interest metric include Solana (SOL, $1.3 billion), XRP ($561.9 million), and Dogecoin (DOGE, $428.5 million). Also, the exchanges where most of the futures and options contracts were executed include Binance ($13.2 billion), Bybit ($8.2 billion), and OKX ($4.8 billion).