SUI, TAO and TIA lead the altcoin pack outperforming Bitcoin, ETH and SOL

Overall, cryptocurrency markets are at about the same level as they were in early 2024. But not every cryptocurrency is as flat as Bitcoin and Ether.

The price of SUI, the native token of the Layer 1 blockchain of the same name, has nearly doubled that of Bitcoin since January 1.

Managed by former Diem-focused Meta employees and considered a competitor to Solana, Sui recently saw TVL surpass the $500 million mark. It has led a small group of cryptocurrencies that have seen Bitcoin share increase year-to-date.

Bitcoin in general still leads the market. The US dollar prices of other cryptocurrencies are often heavily influenced by Bitcoin's movements – they tend to rise and fall alongside BTC.

Bitcoin price scaling offers a less “noisy” alternative. For example, pricing Ether with Bitcoin makes it easier for traders to determine whether ETH is rising or falling due to its correlation with Bitcoin, or whether the market is pricing them more independently.

Of the 60 cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of $1 billion or more that are not stablecoins, wrapped assets or liquid staking tokens, only 14 surpass Bitcoin.



Bitcoin, Ether and Solana are dragging their feet. Source: TradingView

The Bitcoin price share of the machine learning market token Bittensor (TAO) is up 60% this year, followed by the Celestia module data layer TIA at 46%.

ASTR, the native token of the crypto hub for public Polkadot parachain Astar, has also increased its Bitcoin share by almost a third.

Astar is a “smart contract hub” that helps move assets between blockchains including Ethereum and Cosmos. The development team maintains a strong presence in Japan and is preparing to launch its own zkEVM based on Polygon's chain development toolkit.

ORDI – billed as the first BRC-20 token issued through Ordinals – has seen its Bitcoin share multiply over the past six months, surpassing TIA and TAO in Bitcoin-denominated returns.



Ether's Bitcoin ratio is down 14% in six months

Among the studied group, Layer 1 cryptocurrencies such as Stellar (XLM), XRP, Litecoin (LTC) and Monero (XMR) fared the worst compared to Bitcoin over the past half year, each losing about 40% .