My opinion is that altcoins are still dependent with Bitcoin. We can prove that by looking at the most recent bearish market. Bitcoin's price is also dragging down the altcoin market. Altcoins are still growing and maybe in the near future, there is a huge possibility that they will take control of the market. For now, I can conclude that Bitcoin is still on top.
It is quite true that most of altcoin in the market of cryptocurrency is dependent or has the kind of relation to bitcoin in terms of price. In fact, most of altcoin in the market is relatively share the price of bitcoin for them to trade in. Project or the function of a coin is related on how bitcoin works on its system of blockchain so the typical answers is bitcoin will always be the major crypto people would choose on transaction and to invest upon on trading.