The Flippening

What is the Flippening?

“The Flippening” refers to the possible future event when Ethereum overtakes Bitcoin to become the most valuable cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization.

Until recently, Bitcoin has held the top spot without any serious competition since its creation in 2009. On February 24th, 2017, Bitcoin's market capitalization represented 86.74% of the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies.

Since then, even though its price per coin has risen drastically, Bitcoin's market share has fallen compared to its share against the rest of the crypto market and now stands below 60%. At the same time, other cryptocurrencies, especially Ethereum, have rapidly gained market share.

Several metrics measure the usefulness, value, or importance of a cryptocurrency. But when most people talk about the "flippening" taking place, they are usually referring to Ethereum overtaking Bitcoin in market capitalization specifically.

Ethereum vs Bitcoin

At the end of the day, Ethereum and Bitcoin are aiming to be two very different things. Ethereum is trying to be a network that supports many applications and platforms besides the native token, where Bitcoin is just a payment network. Though Bitcoin has expanded to support secondary functions, it is not and has never been the primary focus of the network.