Guys, I own 6 different alcoins and during the dip i followed them all go down as the bitcoin was losing in value. Then yesterday when things started stabilising they were all without any exception all rising in value as the bitcoin raised too. So if bitcoin is driving all prices up and down, what's the point of playing with altcoins if no matter what techonology they use and what team stands behind them they ll just follow the bitcoin lead? I am not sure about you but this last situation depressed me a lot, and I would love to read your opinion.
A big part of the answer is trading pairs - moving between fiat and alts generally involves going via bitcoin. Another big part is that we are (still) in quite early days of crypto, and bitcoin is hugely dominant. Which in turn is a reason for the btc/alt trading pairs.
I think as the market matures, and as trading becomes easier and a lot of the projects become embedded in everyday life, then alts will begin to decouple from bitcoin.
But it's not a 100% match at the moment anyway. Coins do rise and fall for good reasons of their own; it's just that this is not always noticeable because it is swamped by the bitcoin effect. If a coin rises $1 because of good progress with the project, and simultaneously falls $4 because bitcoin is tanking, then you don't see the split - you just see the $3 overall drop, and (rough) correlation with bitcoin.