Bitcoin’s latest surge, which added $4,000 to its price since Christmas Day, has come to an end. In Bitcoin's lull, altcoins are seizing the opportunity—and booming.
All altcoins rose significantly in the past 24 hours days, including XRP, the beleaguered cryptocurrency whose creators are reckoning with a lawsuit that the US Securities and Exchange Commission slapped on them last week.
Ethereum, the second-largest coin by market capitalization, rose by 14.23% in the past 24 hours to $720; XRP by 7.25% to $0.29 (although the coin is still down by 44% in the past week); Litecoin by 6.57% to $134.18; Bitcoin Cash by 15.56% to $364; Polkadot by 15.78% to $5.76; Cardano by 8.47% to $0.16; Binance Coin (BNB) by 8.59% to $34; and Chainlink by 15.58% to $12.23.
Altcoins’ rise started yesterday. Ethereum made headlines (including Decrypt’s) when it rose above $700 yesterday afternoon. ETH then hit its highest price since May 2018, $737.92, earlier today. Its market cap is $82 billion.
QCP Capital, a Singaporean crypto trading firm, wrote today in a note to investors, “late yesterday we got the usual swapping of BTC profits into the Alts, driving ETH to new cycle highs as well. The ETHBTC bounce happened at 0.023, which has proved a strong level for those looking to diversify their growing BTC balance sheets into ETH.”
It will be interesting to observe whether altcoins will continue to rise should Bitcoin’s price change significantly in the next few days.
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