@renegademan: eth can be traded for fiat or btc. btc can be traded for fiat or eth. so why is the btc/eth or eth/btc volume only in the eth volume? i dont understand. and what happens if the eth volume and marked cap is higher that the btc volume and marked cap? then the eth/btc volume is only in the btc volume? maybe im really confused and i dont understand it...
I'm guessing (and someone please correct me if this is wrong) that upon the birth of the first Alt (which was LTC) the volume being reported for LTC was purely LTC/BTC. Then when the first exchange allowed direct purchase of LTC with USD or other FIAT currencies, that volume was added on to the reported LTC volume too. But the volume for an Alt trade is only ever reported within the Alt's volume stats, otherwise every time someone buys an Alt using BTC, that volume would have to also be added on to the BTC stats and that would be unworkable and misleading (as the BTC volume would be out of all proportion to what's really going on).
Sooo....if (and it's a big IF) ETH was to overtake BTC and become the dominant crypto, CoinMarketCap may have to think about turning the tables and only reporting ETH/FIAT trades and then putting the ETH/BTC trades into BTC's volume figures.
I hope that makes sense.
simple.