Bitcoin (BTC) acts like a gateway down the altcoin rabbit pigsty, according to new research from Coinbase. The inquiry found that while threescore% of users buy Bitcoin as their first cryptocurrency purchase, but 24% of investors maintain the Bitcoin faith.

The majority of customers buy Bitcoin and so move into altcoins. Source: Coinbase

Investors appear more willing to consider altcoins during bull runs, such as when Bitcoin's market authorisation dropped below xxx% on Coinbase during the ICO craze and Ethereum run in 2022. For a brief time, Ethereum was the dominant asset traded on the platform with effectually fifty% of the trading volume.

Justin Martin from Coinbase Corporate Development explained in Around The Block the sentiment behind this behaviour:

"This could be for a diverseness of reasons, simply 1 is largely psychological. As people feel good most their initial crypto investments (into Bitcoin), they branch out to observe other possible categorical winners (as evident in the 2022 bull run)."

A drug that keeps on giving

Others accept noticed Bitcoin acting as a sort of 'gateway drug' to other cryptocurrencies in the past. Bitcoin analyst Nick Colas said in an interview with CNBC that the enthusiasm during the 2022 bull run "has now morphed into a full general craze… I think of Bitcoin as kind of a gateway drug".

In June 2022 on Bloomberg Markets, Messari Inc co-founder and CEO Ryan Selkis suggested Facebook's Libra could act as a 'gateway drug' for crypto investors, potentially leading them to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin's dream equally digital gold

During bear markets and times of fear, investors turn to Bitcoin as the 'blue-scrap asset of crypto'.

The report suggests Bitcoin is moving towards its vision of becoming the digital gold, as altcoins are prized for their other services:

"To the extent nosotros believe that culling assets and networks volition provide differentiated services (beyond store of value and digital aureate as Bitcoin is targeting), it will exist of import for the industry to build back up for these other assets too."