Does ETH Hold the Key to the Next Altcoin Rally?

While many among us have been eagerly awaiting another rally for our favorite altcoins, the market of late has been a little confusing… to say the least. News that would have sent prices rapidly upwards in the past have barely moved the needle, leaving many wondering what it’s going to take to kick the market into high gear again.

Just look at the news regarding Ripple investing $50M in Moneygram, XRP is actually trading lower today than it was a week ago when the rumor first broke.

On the flip-side, whether due to the pending halving that is less than 60 days away or other factors, Litecoin has recently regained some of the ground lost over the last year, surging to over $134 as of this writing.

Of course, if we could figure out pending market rises and drops beforehand we’d all be billionaires at this juncture in our lives, but with the cryptowinter behind us, scam ICOs becoming fewer and farther between, and prices finally starting to trend in the right direction, is there a “Rosetta Stone” for unlocking the next altcoin rally?

Well, it’s possible.

At this point in time, the volatility and price of the majority of altcoins generally mirror that of Bitcoin. When the #1 crypto has a good day on the market, ETH, LTC, XRP, and subsequent altcoins tend to creep into the green as well. But will that always be the case?

ERC-20 is one of the most significant tokens today and has emerged as the technical standard utilized for smart contract token implementation on the Ethereum blockchain. Because the token defines a list of common rules that all Ethereum tokens must adhere to, it inherently garners respect. However, the fact that numerous altcoins are built to run on ERC-20, there were almost 200,000 ERC-20 compatible tokens on Ethereum’s main network as of two months ago and more and more coming online almost constantly, could very well mean that there are rather huge changes in store for the industry in the near future.

ETH is still the top altcoin by market cap and a surge in the price of ETH would likely cause a price surge for ERC-20 as well. With so many altcoins having ETH as their primary or sole trading pair, is it possible that an ETH price surge could pull up the whole altcoin market?

Regular readers are already aware that I’m a firm believer in the future possibilities of smart contracts, as well as more than a little leery of the potential for misuse, and with ETH still the leading smart contract coin arena and ERC-20 forming the “foundation” for so many altcoins, we may see ETH finally break free of Bitcoin’s price shadow and become the firm indicator for a large portion of the market.