Bitcoin price surge pushes the cryptocurrency market up

After gaining almost 5% in the last day, Bitcoin is on the uptrend ahead of its rapidly approaching third halvening.

2 min read

Feb 19, 2020

Bitcoin (BTC) is once again in the green today, after rising from a low of $9,634 up to a peak of over $10,160 in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin now sits at just over $10,149 after gaining 4.5% since yesterday.

Bitcoin now has a market capitalization of almost $185 billion—just over $5 billion short of its highest value so far in 2020. Likewise, its hash rate is now approaching its highest ever value, currently sitting at just shy of 116 million TH/s. This shows that miners are ramping up their Bitcoin production.

At least one of the main reasons behind this recent bullish momentum can be attributed to Bitcoin's third upcoming halving event, which is currently predicted to occur in just over 80 days. At this time, the number of newly minted Bitcoin with every new block will be reduced from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC, thereby reducing the number of new Bitcoin that enter circulation.

Barring stablecoins, the entire cryptocurrency market is performing well today, as the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies reached almost $297 billion—up 4.3% in the last day.

Although Bitcoin is responsible for the majority of this growth, altcoins like Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) are also racking up strong gains, having increased by around six percent apiece, while Tezos (XTZ) has gained 15% to reach its highest value this year at $3.77.

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

Get crypto news straight to your inbox--

sign up for the Decrypt Daily below. (It’s free).

Get Email!

Build on Bitcoin Launches Mainnet With Over 40 Apps

The Build on Bitcoin (BOB) project announced the launch of its first phase on Wednesday, enabling decentralized apps—dapps—to interact with the world’s top blockchain. The BOB mainnet is coming online with $300 million in total value locked (TVL) and over 40 dapps already available, the team said on Twitter, declaring “a Bitcoin-driven DeFi summer” with more to come in the next three weeks. Build on Bitcoin is intended to be a hybrid layer-2 network that merges Bitcoin’s global adoption, liquidi...

If the SEC Thinks Ethereum Is a Security, Are ETH ETFs Doomed?

Will the SEC approve an Ethereum ETF this year? Optimism among market participants is fading—and now that the SEC’s stance on Ethereum as a security has been made public, those hopes may have been shot down for good. “If this SEC approves a spot Ethereum ETF before the election, I will eat my HODL hat,” Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at Van Eck, an Ethereum ETF applicant, told Decrypt. That’s because of a lawsuit filed last week by Ethereum software company Consensys against the...

Ronin's Path From Curated Ethereum Gaming to 'Pervasively Permissionless'

Ronin goes against the grain when it comes to the Web3 philosophy. For many in the crypto space, the beauty of the blockchain is that it’s permissionless and that anyone can build without a centralized authority. Instead, the Ethereum sidechain gaming network instead opts for a closed, curated approach at present. There’s a reason for this kind of early approach, the team says—and it's hard to argue with success, given the vast rise in Ronin players in recent months, plus its surge to an all-ti...