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Bitcoin, which has been rallying over the last few weeks after being trapped in a more than year-long bear market, remains far below its all-time high of near $20,000 per bitcoin as traders and investors wait for major financial institutions and retailers to wade into cryptocurrencies.

The bitcoin price has recently climbed back above the psychological $5,000 per bitcoin mark, adding some 45% so far this year. Some smaller cryptocurrencies have climbed far more with a few, including binance coin, created by the Malta-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, rallying back to all-time highs set in late 2017.

Now, bitcoin and cryptocurrency financial rating agency,Weiss Ratings has suggested binance coin could be the next bitcoin due to it dictating the direction of the market in recent weeks.

Many smaller cryptocurrencies, as well as bitcoin, have climbed in recent months with binance coin adding 300% so far this year.

Bitcoin has historically decided the direction of the cryptocurrency market, with bitcoin's price moves pushing and pulling smaller cryptocurrencies.

As the cryptocurrency market has matured, however, smaller cryptocurrencies have increasingly found their own direction independent of bitcoin, with binance coin, an ethereum token used to pay fees on Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, increasingly leading the market, according to Weiss Ratings.

Binance coin is up by more than 300% this year,gaining the most of thetop 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, CoinMarketCap data shows. The recent launch of Binance Chain earlier this month triggered another binance coin price rally, taking it above its previous all-time high of $24 per token.

Weiss Ratings took to Twitter to suggest binance coin could be the new bitcoin.

Last month, Weiss Ratings gave binance coin an overall rating of B-, putting it in the same class as bitcoin, Ripple's XRP, and EOS, a rival to ethereum.

The Weiss report gave the world's biggest cryptocurrencies overall score, most of which were not as good as their combined tech and adoption grades. EOS, bitcoin, Ripple's XRP, and binance coin all scored a B-, while litecoin, ethereum, cardano, stellar, Neo, and tron were assigned a C+.

"Binance merits a B-, but its grade is currently influenced by a recent surge in its market price, which may not be sustainable," the report authors warned.

Thereport, tantalizingly entitled Dark Shadows With A Bright Future, also assigned letter grades to cryptocurrencies that have the best combination of adoption and technology, putting EOS at the top of the field, above its long-time rival ethereum and in the same class as bitcoin and Ripple's XRP.

Weiss Ratings gave binance coin the same overall grade as bitcoin, EOS, and Ripple's XRP.

Binance coinis currently the seventh biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap data, with a total value of $3.3 billion. This is a far cry from bitcoin's lofty valuation, which is nudging $100 billion.

Binance coin has been boosted recently by the well-publicized launch of theBinance DEX (Decentralized Exchange) after the company released its testnet for public use in February.

The Binance DEX is expected to be the world's first widely-used decentralized exchange and is built on Binances own blockchain, Binance Chain. The decentralized exchange will allow users to retain control of their own private keys, something that many cryptocurrency users have long called for so hackers are not able to break into accounts if the centralized exchange database is compromised.

Binance coin has been climbing ahead of the launch of Binance's decentralized exchange.

Meanwhile, Binance has courted controversy recently with the "de-listing" of bitcoin SV, a fork of bitcoin which split from bitcoin cash last November.

Last week, Binance said it will de-list bitcoin SV, striking it from the exchange as of April 22 as it no longer "meet[s] the high level of standard we expect."

Ahead of the decision, which was then adopted by other major crypto exchanges, the widely-respected chief executive of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (often known simply as CZ), warned that his exchange could remove bitcoin SV if its biggest proponent, Craig Wright, continues to claim to be bitcoin's creator, the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, and attack those who disagree with him.

Bitcoin SV developers and supporters attacked the decision, accusing Binance and CZ of "market manipulation."

"This decision will certainly be reported to the Maltese regulators as this is surely a case of people in trusted positions abusing that trust and playing God with which token gets the most volume and market access," Calvin Ayre, a supporter of Wright and the founder and owner of CoinGeek, a cryptocurrency miner and developer, told theFinancial Timesin response to the de-listing. "In essence, market manipulation."

"The decision to delist bitcoin SV seems to be based on the fact that they dont like one scientist that works on the platform," Ayre added. "Craig [Wright] doesnt own [bitcoin SV], nor does anybody, so this appears to be very unprofessional. An exchange should just want volume of trading not picking which horses it wants to win the race and, as a result, smells of fear and manipulation."

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Is This Cryptocurrency The Next Bitcoin? - forbes.com