Namecoin's relatively stable performance during the past few months has not been enough to preserve its spot amongst the top 10 coins as ranked by market cap.
During the past 24 hours, Namecoin (NMC) fell to 12th, just barely surpassed by Stellar. Its total valuation is currently $9.15 million. NMC has been a fixture amongst top Cryptocurrencies for much of this year, despite struggling--the underperformance of other top-ranked, Bitcoin -derived currencies helped.
But the emergence of non-Bitcoin derived currencies and their relatively strong price performances have pushed NMC back. Of the 11 currencies now ahead, six are from the new generation.
The market has generally taken a greater interest in these currencies and their protocols, which aim to facilitate decentralized exchange, smart contracts and foreign currency transfers. The market has become weary of Bitcoin's many clones, and, although Namecoin has more intrinsic value to offer than many others with its decentralized domain management, the new generation of coins have simply grabbed more attention from traders. However, it's still to be determined how long this lasts. During the past 24 hours, only $19,400 worth of NMC has been traded--ranking it 17th among cryptocurrencies.
Namecoin is currently trading at $0.86, or 0.00246 BTC on BTC-e. Since September, it has shown some stabilization around the 0.0025 BTC mark, although its dollar-based valuation is susceptible to a declining bitcoin value.
