As debates continue to sprout on its capability as a safe haven, Bitcoin’s rising dominance of the crypto market is becoming a cause for concern for many altcoins whose share continue to dwindle.

As at this writing, Coinmarketcap data shows Bitcoin is at 69.2% of the $305 bln-worth market followed by Ethereum at ~7.6% ($23 bln). The eight others in the top ten cover for almost 14% while the remainder 2431 currencies (of the listed 2441) including TRON, NEO and Cardano jostle for approximately 10%.

The decreasingly miniscule amount for the majority is up for a test as there’re indications that the ongoing China-US trade war and other pending geopolitical situations such as Brexit and a looming German economy crash could favor Bitcoin as a store of value in coming days.

Grayscale notes in its updated report that Bitcoin is an exciting financial technology and investment opportunity because of its distinct set of properties: store-of-value characteristics similar to real assets like gold; spending characteristics similar to cash; and growth characteristics of a new technology.

While it has been theorized that the crypto market has to wait for Bitcoin to reach its all-time high in terms of market dominance before it stagnates and drops for altcoins to run, the entire market’s reliance on Bitcoin has once again come out open and many altcoins’ lack of utility – user growth and token demand through regular use – made bare.

The token performance of many crypto projects is obviously weak at this point. Many of them have failed to focus on their core utility to drive token demand from within or (preferably) outside the crypto space to free themselves of any impact from rising Bitcoin dominance.

Yet, the trade war, whose continuous escalation seems to be the first to test a new asset as a hedge against a slow global economy in its decade-long existence, is bringing to fore the debates as to whether Bitcoin has joined the class of safe havens.

China lowered the value of the Yuan below 7 to 1 peg against the dollar and also halted U.S. agriculture purchases leading the Bank of America Merrill Lynch to warn that China may cross out US administration’s success in restricting Iranian oil exports. These painful hits inflicted by China is pushing for commodity assets, including oil, to be sold for a safe haven to be bought.

A fall back on gold has been evident in the recent surge of its price to a six-year high but the same could not be said about Bitcoin which many have earlier predicted could be the go-to asset to keep value in the digital age and when such a situation arises.

The narrative has to change for blockchain crypto projects – though it has been argued that the technology has been overhyped and only good for the financial sector – otherwise a lot of the startups that ventured into it without a purpose for their tokens would continue to shut down as trading empty assets won’t work in the long term.

The years of many crypto projects investing in shady market-making token exposure for traders is long gone and didn’t last. They need less of their assets in the hands of traders for speculation but should rather build volume from the actual use of their tokens in their chosen target market.