blockworks.co
23 June 2025 19:01, UTC
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Just one coin has ever come close to flipping bitcoin, around this time, eight years ago.
In June 2017, bitcoin was in the final stages of warming up for a historic push to nearly $20,000 by Christmas.
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Altcoin prices were wacky. Bitcoin would be flat one week, while coins like BitShares would jump massively, by 250%. Others, like Stratis and DigiByte, were down up to 50% in the same period.
Ethereum, meanwhile, was poised for an explosion in token projects. One study calculated that $7 billion flowed into ICOs throughout 2017, practically all of it going to Ethereum-based projects. That was supposedly 4x more than the equity investments into crypto companies across the same period.
The price of $ETH rose as investors piled into coin offerings through Ethereum’s native token. And on June 12, the market cap of $ETH came within 17% of surpassing bitcoin’s: $36.8 billion to $44.3 billion.
Had bitcoin stayed flat, $ETH would’ve only needed to jump from $400 to $470 to slide into the No. 1 spot.
This banger from the New York Time was published days earlier.
But it would never be: $BTC and $ETH both fell by 60% over the next month, preceding a 10x pump through the end of the bull market for $BTC — but only a 9x for $ETH. Ether never made the ground back.
By late June 2017, it was becoming clear the Flippening was no longer realistic.
