It's not the first time in 2021 that its dominance has dwindled. As per CoinMarketCap, BTC had slipped to barely 40.3 percent of the total crypto asset capitalization in May, and it was close to the same level again in September.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin critic and Europac chairman Peter Schiff tweeted about the event, claiming it shows that BTC is "losing its first-mover competitive edge."

With over 16,000 other cryptocurrencies to select from, Bitcoin's market share has fallen below 40% for the first time since June 2018. With an endless supply of easily generated cryptos with nearly identical features, #Bitcoin loses its competitive advantage as the first mover.

According to TradingPlatforms' research, the data could indicate an impending "alt season." Altcoin market dominance has expanded thrice in the last seven years, rising from 21% in 2014 to over 60% this month.

Ethereum has burned 1.2 million ETH in just four months, destroying nearly $5 billion in ether.

The London upgrade, which adds additional rule sets to the Ethereum chain, was implemented four months ago. EIP-1559, an Ethereum rule-set change that enabled a new fee rate scheme that allowed the network to burn a percentage of ether, was the most transformational.

"When blocks are above the gas target, the base fee per gas increases, and when blocks are below the gas target, the base charge per gas decreases." According to EIP-1559's description, "the base cost per gas is burned."

Bitcoin back above $50,000 while altcoins experience major pumps

The burn process has destroyed 1.28 million ether as of today, December 28, 2021, equating to about $5 billion in USD value at today's ETH/USD exchange rate. To date, the amount of value burned had increased by 31.57 percent over what was burned on November 24, when the burn rate surpassed one million ether. According to estimates, there are currently 118,926,664 ethers in circulation.

Data suggests that Ethereum whales sell as the price falls below $4,000.

This week, the number of Ethereum addresses with at least 1,000 ETH fell to a four-year low.

Ethereum is having trouble keeping its wealthiest investors on board, as its native coin, Ether (ETH), appears to be headed for further losses soon.
The number of Ethereum addresses holding at least 1,000 ETH decreased to 6,292 on Monday, according to blockchain data analytics firm Glassnode, the lowest level since April 2017. In January, the numbers reached a year-to-date high of 7,239 people.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are on the decline, while XRP is rising

On-chain experts look at ETH distributions among addresses to determine retail and institutional sentiments. They classify wallets with more than 1,000 ETH (about $3.92 million at current exchange rates) as "whales," owing to their capacity to affect market patterns in the short term through big sell and buy orders.

However, the decline in the number of so-called whales demonstrates a continued selling tendency among the wealthiest Ethereum wallet users. For example, the number of Ethereum addresses holding at least 10,000 ETH (about $39.20 million) has decreased by nearly 4.5 percent, from 1,208 in June to 1,156 at the time of writing.

However, on a year-to-date basis, the numbers have risen from 1,065 to 1,156, while the cost of purchasing 1 ETH has risen over 450 percent.