Total crypto market cap hits new all-time high of $1.13 trillion

The combined value of all cryptocurrencies broke a new record of close to $1.139 trillion at 8:50 a.m. UTC on Feb. 4 . While long-term analysts often eye Bitcoin's solo chances of eating into gold's total market cap, the combined value of all cryptos together is currently more competitive with the total market cap of silver, at just under $1.5 trillion.

Having broken the $1 trillion milestone early in Jan. 2021, today's crypto market is seeing greater distribution of growth between the top two assets in the game: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). On Jan. 7, the date of the market's $1 trillion breakthrough, Bitcoin dominance clocked in at 69%, versus Ether's 13.5%. By contrast, the most recently updated data from CoinMarketCap this week has Bitcoin dominance at 62.2% versus Ether's share at 15.6%. Bitcoin 

Ether's relatively stronger market share signals the asset's record performance this week, having scored a new all-time high of $1,653 on Feb. 3. On the same date, Bitcoin dominance was down to 61.6%.

As of the time of writing, Ether is up over 6% on the day at $1,623, with Bitcoin up 3.5% to $37,142. Soaring Ether prices have seen a corresponding increase in gas fees, with knock-on consequences for DeFi protocols — though a proposed fee and burn mechanism for Ether from Vitalik Buterin and Eric Conner has boosted the confidence of Grayscale Investments, which considers that the move, if pursued, could create “a positive feedback loop for Ether’s price.”

Market analysts have this week also pointed to current incentives for bulls to push Bitcoin's target to $40,000, including tomorrow's total of $1 billion in Bitcoin options open interest set to expire.