Bitcoin and Layer 1 Altcoins: A look into August’s Price Performance and Use Cases

As the top two digital currencies by market capitalization, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) had an impressive price action in August, however, the performance when compared to other layer 1 blockchain networks can be tagged as abysmal.

According to data from ICO Analytics, Bitcoin saw a monthly growth of 13% to close the month at a price of $48,385.05, atop a gain of 2.85% at the time of writing. Ethereum recorded a price surge of 35%, re-establishing its mark as a better performer when compared to Bitcoin. The ICO Analytics data showed that the more the market capitalization reduces, the more the price gains per token.

Binance Coin (BNB) native to the Binance exchange ecosystem inked a 39% gain as it maintained its position amongst the top 5 cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of $81.67 billion. Cardano (ADA) also recorded a massive gain worth 110% due to anticipation of increased smart contract activities on the blockchain in the near future. While Polkadot (DOT), Celo (CELO), and Cosmos (ATOM) also came up with massive gains, the two top performers for August include Avalanche (AVAX), Solana (SOL), and Fantom (FTM) with 209%, 200%, and 179% growth respectively.

Each of these networks have their thriving ecosystem, also billed to continually drive the future price performances of the underlying tokens.

Use Cases Giving Bitcoin Away?

The majority of the profiled layer 1 blockchain protocols are all open source, and enables the growth of smart contracts. This has helped them all to catch in on the mania surrounding decentralized finance and Non-Fungible Tokens. While all these blockchain networks besides the Bitcoin blockchain boasts of this functionality to house smart contracts, the hype around each also differs with investors favoring tokens with lower price tag, and market capitalization.

Bitcoin still maintains its first mover advantage with the big money names looking to take a position with the first cryptocurrency. However, the narrative of Ethereum flippening the digital currencies is further strengthened as the Ethereum blockchain now undergoes a periodic token burn, a new feature ushered in by the London Hardfork upgrade. 

While Bitcoin’s supply remain capped at 21 million, Ethereum’s rate of token burn pushes the digital currency as a more deflationary asset. This has the tendency to attract investor’s trust for a more massive price gain. With this and more factors, the Ethereum token has the favorable ideal to continue in its attempt to flip Bitcoin in the near future.