Altcoin Surge Ends; Bitcoin Continues to Shine toward $1,800

May 10, 2017

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The altcoin surge has ended. After climbing for the past seven days, the majority of altcoins fell today while bitcoin has continued to rise.

Chart from CoinMarketCap.

Ripple, which yesterday replaced Ethereum for the number two cryptocurrency based on market cap, fell back to second place today as it lost nearly 15 points in a recent 24-hour period. As of yesterday, Ripple was outpacing all currencies with high double-digit gains. Today, its market cap fell to just over $7 billion. In the previous 24-hour period, Ripple posted an 83.91-point gain.

Ethereum suffered less of a loss in the 24-hour period, falling 1.43 points but recovering its number two spot at $8.197 billion in market capitalization. Ethereum Classic, the number 7 cryptocurrency with a $606.167 million market cap, lost 2.46 points.

Bitcoin Continues Its March

Bitcoin continued its steady march forward, posting more than 9 points in the 24-hour period, with a market cap approaching $30 billion. Bitcoin’s pace nearly doubled over the previous 24-day period. Bitcoin’s price topped $1,800 this morning.

Litecoin was the only currency with more than a $1 billion in market capitalization to post a gain in the 24-hour period – 0.29 points for a market cap of about $1.5 billion, maintaining the number 4 spot. Litecoin surpassed the $1 billion mark earlier this month when its price jumped 30 points from around $16 to nearly $23.

NEM, the only other currency with more than a $1 billion market cap, lost 8.07 points in the number 5 spot.

Dash, which has been on a roll as the number 6 currency, suffered a 5.09 point drop in the 24-hour period to $693.899 million. Dash had soared from $77 million to $528 million in its market cap in the first quarter.

Monero, the number 8 currency that has also been rising as of late, lost 1.51 points. Monero successfully hard forked in January.

Stellar Performer: Steem

The only stellar performer in the recent 24-hour period was Steem, which at number 10 with a $324.198 market cap, posted a 34.87 point gain. Steemit is a decentralized social media platform that rewards users for delivering commentary, images and videos. Steemit’s blockchain successfully completed a hard fork late last year.

While bitcoin in has continued to rise, the fallout in altcoin prices could undermine its growth. The altcoin surge was cited by some analysts as one of the factors behind bitcoin’s growth since investors were buying altcoins with bitcoin. Most exchanges don’t enable investors to trade fiat currencies for altcoins. Those who want to invest have to first purchase bitcoins, then exchange them for the desired altcoin.

The altcoin surge has not been the sole factor behind bitcoin’s gains, however.

Also read: Bitcoin maintains price stability while altcoins fall; the importance of low volatility

Bitcoin’s Outlook Strong

A jump in global trading volume, particularly from Japan and the Japan-based bitFlyer exchange, has also been fueling bitcoin’s surge.

Recent trading is markedly led by Japanese markets where the yen contributed to over half of the global trading volume in a recent 24-hour period.

Capital flows into bitcoin are also increasing worldwide.

Brian Kelly, the founder of Brian Kelly Capital, noted the biggest driver in bitcoin’s growth is institutional investors in the digital asset sector.

Kelly referred to the incoming capital as “real money” that will be used to fund the new Internet.

Another factor Kelly noted is a consensus in the bitcoin community against Bitcoin Unlimited, which would divide the cryptocurrency into two coins. The momentum now is to support and upgrade the existing Bitcoin Core system.

Featured image from Shutterstock.