The market dominance of altcoins outside the giants is revealing something interesting.

When you strip out Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the rest of the top 10 heavy hitters, what's left tells its own story. This metric tracks the collective market share of everything else—your mid-caps, low-caps, and those hidden gems waiting to pop.

Think of it like this: the big players hold the majority of total crypto market cap, but the smaller altcoins? They're the ones that show where retail attention and speculative energy are actually flowing. When their combined dominance rises, it usually means risk appetite is climbing. Money's rotating into riskier plays.

Right now, watching how these smaller coins perform as a group gives you a read on market sentiment that pure Bitcoin or Ethereum charts won't show you.