Yes, the markets are linked and bitcoin crash would undermine faith in all cryptocurrency. I don't think there's much we can do about that.
Here's the scenarios I have thought through:
1. Small adjustment
2. Large adjustment
3. Full scale crash
4. Flippening
For 1, this is likely and overdue. All cryptos will dip when btc goes through this. Good buying opportunities for those that are not overly invested in crypto.
For 2, this is a risk. All cryptos would crash, particularly Litecoin, ETH, Bitcoin Cash, etc. There would be a long term recovery.
For 3, this is a smaller risk. All cryptos would crash. Your money is gone, but the hardcore would continue to push for it to be a cryptocurrency. The tech will be applied to banking.
For 4, only BTC and its clones would collapse. The most likely candidate is Bitcoin Cash, providing the whales continue to to carry it to adoption and burn money to ride out adjustments. I believe there are several whales that will do this. If the fears of lightning and blocksize prove to be false, a flippening will not happen until a contender appears or there is a mistake with the handling of the btc project.
I'm curious to see what the 'bankers' add to the equation now futures are here, these reckless tools will undoubtedly fuel blind panic.
My observations of watching adjustments across a decent mix:
Monero and Dash I have observed to buck the trends, and can often go up whilst BTC and its clones dip. The wider trends they follow though.
BTC, BCH, BCG, ETH, LTC, etc. are all joint at the hip with BTC having the biggest impact on the others. This is down to their properties, there's really not much difference between most coins in terms of technical properties.
There's a lot of shitcoins, mostly running on pure speculation so these are just a random guess.
I think crypto has value and I hope it persists; providing it becomes more efficient and replaces cash.
note: obviously pure opinion
Agree. Nice. If BTC crashes people need to understand the chances of the exchanges not crashing - so you will not get your money out - are zero. They will crash and the truth is NONE of the exchangeshave enough FIAT on hand if too many people want to convert to cash.
Yes, a crash can happen and has happened and will happen again. WHen it happens and how low it will go is not something people can predict.