Many experts think that

Bitcoin

is overvalued and that its real value is less, than the market one. Well, in this article let's talk about the main cryptocurrency, discuss its disadvantages, the current situation, and forecasts for the future. So, first things first.

BTC`s place in rating now (rate, capitalization, market share)

The cryptocurrency industry is not having its finest hour nowadays. Over the past week, the market capitalization has decreased by $70 billion and today this mark is $123 billion. Despite the total prices collapse, Bitcoin retains its leading position - the market share of 54.4%. Now the market is too

volatile

, so the numbers that will be given in this material may differ from the real ones. For the moment of writing this article 1 BTC costs $3,880, and the capitalization of the coin is around at 67 billion dollars. It is possible, that when you read this article the above values ​​will be different.

Why BTC is considered as overvalued?

At the end of 2017, the BTC rate briefly exceeded $20,000. At that time, this asset was extremely overbought and overvalued. Euphoria reigned in the market, an increasing number of investors wanted to enter the market. But such a growth could not last forever, so a rapid pullback followed after.

Bitcoin has nothing to do with the physical world and by itself can not have real value, in the usual sense. What is BTC? This is just a set of data that is stored on the blockchain. Its value is determined by investors faith, as well as the users base. The problem is that the Bitcoin`s network in its current form is not able to process a large number of transactions quickly. This is one of the limiting factors on the coin`s path to get a universal acceptance.

Who can push Bitcoin from the first place?

Currently more than 2,000 different cryptocurrency projects are released. Is it really possible to find at least one coin from all this long list, that can take the first place in the global rating of cryptocurrencies? This is a rather complicated question, there is no definite answer on it. But speaking about the near future, the most answer will be “no”. The fact is, that now (the end of 2018) BTC holds a 54.4% share of the total cryptocurrency market. This means, that the remaining 2000-plus coins together make up only 45.6%.

But in the longer term, there is a chance, that some kind of token or coin will still be able to take first place. What cryptocurrency projects are capable to do this?

1.Ripple

Lately, it takes the honorable second place in global rating CoinMarketCap.

Price: 35 cents;

Market capitalization: $14 billion;

Issue: 100 billion tokens.

In short, the Ripple technology allows a large number of users to share assets at the same time. The project got its feet on the ground, and what is most important it is used in real life. This technology is used by large banks in order to reduce the cost of transactions (Earthport, Bank of America, HSBC, etc.). Ripple is able to process more than 1,500 transactions per second, with minimal fees (0.00001 XRP). Given the potential value of this project and the huge number of tokens, it can be assumed that Ripple has every chance to win first place in the global cryptocurrency rating.

2. Ethereum

Price: 109 dollars;

Market capitalization: 11 billion dollars;

Issue: unlimited (currently more than 103 million coins have been mined).

Ethereum firmly held the second place for a long time, but the last wave of correction moved it to the 3rd line in this list . We want to remind you, that literally in early November 2018, Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum`s creator) said that the project is waiting for a major update in the near future. If the developers succeed in doing all that, Buterin said, this will have a good affect on the future rate of the coin.

All other coins are too far from the top three in terms of capitalization and popularity among the masses. Potentially, almost any coin from the TOP-100, can get ahead in future, but its probability is extremely small.

Conclusion

For over ten years Bitcoin is the main cryptocurrency in the industry. The overwhelming majority of people when hear the word “cryptocurrency” unconsciously imply Bitcoin. Of course, BTC has its disadvantages, but the development team is working hard to eliminate them. This is a very complex process, the implementation of which requires a lot of time.

So, if we analyze this issue, we can say with confidence that it is unlikely, that any other coin will be able to take Bitcoin`s place in the near future.