Several altcoins, including XRP and Shiba Inu, have leveraged the Bitcoin (BTC) uptrend to record their own gains, but an analyst believes these assets could collapse as the market matures.

Samson Mow, CEO of Bitcoin technology company JAN3, reiterated Bitcoin’s unique standing in the broader crypto ecosystem, recently asserting that the rest of the market would not be able to keep up with the pace at which the premier crypto asset runs.

Altcoins Track Bitcoin Gains

Notably, Bitcoin has been on an impressive run since the fourth quarter of last year, extending the price rally into this year. The asset is now up 72% this year amid an extensive uptrend that has seen it record multiple all-time highs.

However, BTC is not alone in these gains. Interestingly, Shiba Inu is up 214% this year, essentially outperforming Bitcoin on the year-to-date timeframe. XRP has also seen a mild gain, with an 11.5% increase this year despite a recent retracement. 

Nonetheless, Mow expects these altcoins to see a massive crash in the long run amid the Bitcoin upsurge. “I’m expecting alts to crash in the coming weeks,” the Pixelmatic CEO remarked in a post on X.

I’m expecting alts to crash in the coming weeks. They’ve been tracking #Bitcoin gains post ETF approvals, but obviously they lack the $500M to $1B daily inflows we have. That should be the main indicator that their gains are unsustainable.

— Samson Mow (@Excellion) March 13, 2024

According to Mow, while altcoins have leveraged the Bitcoin uptrend to secure unique gains, they don’t record as much inflows as the firstborn crypto commands. Bitcoin has continued to see record inflows into its investment products, buoyed by the spot Bitcoin ETFs.

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XRP, Shiba Inu Trail in Investment Inflows

For instance, on Tuesday, the ten Bitcoin ETF products saw a record inflow of $1.04 billion. These investment vehicles have persistently recorded hundreds of millions of dollars in inflows since they started trading on the open market.

When compared to other assets, Bitcoin truly shines. Last week, all Bitcoin investment products saw inflows worth $2.6 billion. Meanwhile, investment products based on XRP only witnessed $1.5 million, with Ethereum seeing a meager $2.1 million inflows within the same timeframe.

Market watchers have attributed Bitcoin’s sustained uptrend to the constant inflows it records. Based on this rationale, Mow believes the gains recorded by altcoins such as XRP, Ethereum and Shiba Inu, are not sustainable. As a result, he expects a major crash.

He called attention to the fact that Solana (SOL), which boasts a market cap of $73 billion, is much larger than MicroStrategy with a valuation of $30 billion. Mow does not see the logic behind this gap, expecting altcoins such as SOL to give up their lofty positions.

Notably, due to the lack of inflows from investment products, proponents of different assets have also pushed for spot ETFs.

For instance, the XRP community has repeatedly championed the narrative of a spot XRP ETF. Also, Shiba Inu proponents recently launched a campaign for BlackRock to launch a Shiba Inu ETF.

It bears mentioning that this sentiment from Mow directly contrasts opinions from most market analysts in the space. These analysts have pointed out that most of these altcoins have not recovered their 2021 all-time highs, leaving room for more growth.