After more than ten days of steady growth, the price of bitcoin has managed to reclaim the $12,000 mark. At time of publishing, the coin was sitting at $12,259, up four percent for the day and an astonishing 25 percent for the week.
Bitcoin’s market dominance is also on the rise, currently at 68.6 percent—a level not seen since April 2017. This dominance is reflected in the cryptocurrency market charts with Bitcoin showing the most significant 24 hour price gains across the top 20 coins.
Bitcoin’s increasing price has been linked to global political tensions, since it is seen as an alternative investment vehicle. There are growing concerns of a trade war between the US and China with both countries trying to stave of an economic downturn through their own monetary policies. In fact, relations have become so bad, Chinese businessman and Tron founder Justin Sun canceled a $4.6 million lunch with notable American investor Warren Buffett—under heavy pressure from China. And with things only looking to get worse, Bitcoin could be set to regain much of the entire cryptocurrency market cap, unless one of its competitors (Ethereum, XRP) can attract the same kind of attention.
On the other hand, if Bitcoin's price is largely being held up by an influx of Tethers—with another $100 million USDT being minted on the Tron blockchain today, then the recent progress may be built on sand.
Bitcoin's growth has brought a few altcoins along for the ride, with Monero up three percent from $78 to $96 in the past seven days. However, despite a gain in dollar value, its value against Bitcoin has still dropped.
Other coins have been on a steady decline over the last week, such as Cardano, which fell from $0.06 to $0.05. So for now, it looks like Bitcoin's monopoly is only going to get stronger.