_{Brought to you by:}

 🚗 Flourishing in its lane

Nobody really wonders what the next bitcoin will be anymore. 

That’s because Bitcoin won. There’s no “next” Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the next bitcoin and it’s already here. Better to build something else.

It’s natural, then, that a fixation on the next Ethereum would then take over.

After almost a decade of smart contract platforms launching to rival Ethereum, we now have more than 30 coins which you might consider would-be ETH killers.

That includes tokens for newer chains like Sui, Sei, Celestia and TON, as well as older networks such as Cronos, Cardano, Fantom and EOS.

Over the past three years, only 10 have outperformed ETH. TRON’s ETH ratio has jumped about 140%, for instance, while TON’s has doubled. 

SOL has appreciated 26% against ETH since this time in 2021, but over the past year it has swelled by 140%.

Solana is indeed the crowd favorite to potentially flip Ethereum somewhere down the line. And while it tends to feel realistic at times, the market is quietly saying otherwise in the current moment.

The first step is stripping away all the noise. In this case, that’s bitcoin. 

We’ve already established that Bitcoin doesn’t compete with Ethereum (and most other general-purpose smart contract platforms, for that matter), leaving little reason to compare the two directly.

Now, let’s separate ETH and the so-called ETH killers from the rest of the crypto market. We’re left with three segments: Ethereum (in purple below), Ethereum killers (green) and crypto without bitcoin (blue).

This chart shows the market dominance of each of the three categories over the past 10 years, a period that started just before Ethereum mined its first block in 2015.

Notice that Ethereum’s share of the crypto market excluding bitcoin has practically stayed the same for almost three-quarters of the chart. 

Right now, it’s around 22%. Halfway through 2022 it was at under 20%, and five years ago it was less than 15%. 

Ethereum killers, meanwhile, altogether make up 18% of the non-bitcoin crypto space, which is about where it was in late 2018 and 2021.

What that says is that Ethereum isn’t really budging in terms of market share. It’s growing at a similar scale and pace to everything else that isn’t bitcoin.

All while a rotating cast of smaller coins go through their own trajectories, with most losing significant ground against ETH, whether across three-year timeframes or one month.

The chart above bundles all the ETH killers together and lays them flat against each other. 

Clearly, the market is betting on SOL and BNB to continue encroaching on Ethereum’s territory. Both enjoy a market cap of about $100 billion, and there’s an enormous gap between those two and all the others. Cardano is the next best with $20 billion.

At the same time, ETH is headed for $400 billion as we digest the reality of a five-year development cycle for Ethereum’s next big upgrade, Beam Chain, which would help it stay relevant in a world littered with alternative super-fast layer-1s.

Just like how Bitcoin has broken off from the crypto market and now mostly exists within its own orbit, it could be that Ethereum is destined for similar treatment. 

In which case, it’s hard to see it going anywhere.

— David Canellis

P.S. Can you do us a favor? Help us tailor Empire to best fit your interests. Fill out this survey.

Brought to you by:

Bitcoin was built for generations. Your portfolio should be, too. Meanwhile enables Bitcoin investors to preserve and pass down wealth by solving finance's hardest problem: intergenerational wealth transfer without value loss. Unlike traditional options eroded by taxes or inflation, Meanwhile’s Bitcoin life insurance secures assets over generations and provides liquidity — all while protecting family legacies and Bitcoin’s value for decades.

• As bitcoin consolidates, Solana memecoin PNUT, named after the late squirrel Peanut, rallies 300% in one day. 

• PNUT’s market cap is now $1.66 billion, up from under $100 million at the start of the month.

• Weekly stablecoin transfer volume on Base is at an all-time high of almost $135 billion, per Blockworks Research data. That’s up nearly 9% from the prior week, which was also a record.

• Base TVL has simultaneously crossed $3 billion for the first time ever.

• Tuesday saw the highest CEX liquidations since August, with $577.6 million coming from longs and $291.6 million from shorts.

🧙‍♀️ Defying gravity

Bitcoin at $90,000 is a reality. 

Right now, a lot of market signals point to a continued run-up for bitcoin, though it quickly backed down from $90,000 after initially breaking the new all-time high. 

One interesting data point to look at when we have this kind of price action is what’s happening over on CME.

For example, traders are clearly ecstatic about the current setup, with CME trading volumes surging to records after the election. This time last week, on Nov. 6, CME notched its highest notional volume day with over $16.4 billion transacted in over 316,000 contracts.

“As Trump’s win became clear, futures premiums began to soar and have since risen above 15% as BTC continued its rally towards $90,000. Despite aggressive positioning, we note that market tops rarely coincide with CME premiums in an uptrend, a promising indicator for now,” K33 analysts wrote. Open interest on CME grew by $2.4 billion.

$100,000 is clearly on the table, and it might even be a reality before the end of the year.

“While the market is due for a breather, we expect prices to head in this direction in the coming weeks. Round numbers tend to be extreme volatility triggers, exemplified by BTC’s $10k breakout in 2017,” analysts Vetle Lunde and David Zimmerman continued.

“The first $10k visit happened on November 29, 2017, a day seeing intraday highs of $11,465 and intraday lows of $8,579, a high-low spread of a massive 34%. A whipsaw of softer magnitude (19%) happened on November 30 before a firm breakout was established on December 1. An eventual $100,000 breakout is well-shaped up to face mirroring volatility.”

Galaxy’s Alex Thorn noted that Monday’s price action in bitcoin notched the “49th biggest gain in history,” though he was careful to highlight that there was a lot of dramatic price action in the early days of bitcoin. 

Anyway, we’re obviously not just watching bitcoin, so I wanted to take a look at how the rally could impact other parts of crypto. 

“BTC’s momentum has awoken the animal spirits within perp traders, as funding rates continue to soar above neutral levels for both BTC and altcoins, indicating heavy long positioning,” K33 said.

Tie the election outcome to lower interest rates and bam! You have a pretty favorable DeFi environment. 

It’s hard not to be a bull these days.

— Katherine Ross

• Roger Ver is awaiting a decision on his potential extradition to the US after the IRS hit him with tax evasion charges.

• Consensys is mulling launching a LINEA token for its layer-2. 

• Revolut is expanding its Revolut X product for experienced traders to more markets across Europe.

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were picked by President-elect Donald Trump to head up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

• Canary Capital filed an S-1 with the SEC for a potential hedera ETF.

Q: Doodles has teased a potential working relationship with McDonald’s while providing no real details. What gives?

I dunno whether I’m excited or skeptical, to be honest. 

Obviously, it’s cool to see a multibillion-dollar corporation interact with crypto, but we need more. And that’s not just the journalist in me, I swear. 

Is it a partnership? Is it just a collaboration? What’s the purpose? I have too many questions and not enough answers. 

I guess I’ll just be sitting on my hands until Nov. 18. 

— Katherine Ross

If this had come this time next year, the obvious joke would be that it’s a top signal.

What’s cool is that NFTs persist in the conversation. Bored Apes might be the butt of jokes in the mainstream world, but it feels like almost everyone is expecting a future resurgence for NFTs in some form.

Is McDonald’s the spark that lights that fire? I’m not sure corporations hold that much sway in crypto, but it can’t hurt.

— David Canellis