The bitcoin cash price rally isn’t over yet. The bitcoin offshoot recovered from its Monday recession to post a 20% gain on Monday, in part due to the successful deployment of an upgrade intended to bring stability to its network. The bitcoin price, meanwhile, resisted its recent tendency to move toward the inverse of bitcoin cash, and it held steady above $6,500.
These factors contributed to positive movement in the total cryptocurrency market cap, which entered the day just above $200 billion. Altogether, the crypto market cap added approximately $7 billion to bring its total to $207.5 billion. This places it within striking distance of the all-time high it set last week.
Bitcoin Price Holds Above $6,500
The bitcoin price posted a 24-hour increase of one-third of one percent, returning its most stable day-over-day performance since the weekend, when it entered a period of intense volatility. Even so, traders did not take the day off. The flagship cryptocurrency still experienced more than $5 billion worth of trading volume in the past day, and three of its five largest pairs were with bitcoin cash.
At one point during the day, the bitcoin price appeared poised to make a run back to $7,000, but the rally stalled at $6,811 and soon led to a decline. At present, the bitcoin price is trading at a global average of $6,537, which translates into a $109 billion market cap.
In the short-term, investors should keep an eye on how derivatives exchange CME’s creation of bitcoin futures affects the price of the asset itself. Yesterday, CME head Terry Duffy stated that he expects these futures to launch during the second week of December, so it will likely not be long until Wall Street begins to engage with bitcoin — or at the very least bitcoin-associated products.
Ethereum Price Continues to Climb
The ethereum price posted another moderate increase on Tuesday as it continues to fight against the gravitational pull of the $300 mark to which it has appeared tethered since early October. The ethereum price rose as high as $340 this morning, although it has since tapered to a present value of $327. Nevertheless, this represents a 24-hour gain of 3% and provides ethereum with a $31.3 billion market cap.
Bitcoin Cash Price Leaps 20%
Bitcoin cash may not have been able to sustain its unprecedented weekend advance to $2,500, but it has nevertheless assembled an enviable week-long rally. The bitcoin cash price resumed that rally on Tuesday, posting a 20% advance that raised it from $1,134 to $1,390. Bitcoin cash now has a market cap of $23.4 billion.
Much of today’s rally can likely be attributed to the successful activation of a hard fork intended to upgrade bitcoin cash’s difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA), which, as CCN has reported, is designed to prevent the wild hashrate swings to which the community has grown accustomed. Consequently, proponents expect that the upgrade will enable it to better fulfill its chief purpose: to serve as peer-to-peer electronic cash.
Altcoin Markets Yield Mixed Returns
The altcoin markets made comprehensive gains yesterday, but they did not extend that unified rally into Tuesday.
The ripple price increased by 2%, bringing XRP’s market cap to just below the $8 billion threshold. The litecoin price traded sideways at $61 but was nevertheless able to reclaim the fifth position from dash, who returned a daily decline of 3% following a brief surge to $455. Seventh-place monero also declined 3%, reducing its price to $123. NEO pulled back approximately three-quarters of one percent, while NEM’s 2.5% decline forced its price below $0.200. Ethereum classic rounded out the top 10 with a 7% increase to $17 that was perhaps predicated on the recent news that Grayscale intends to list its Ethereum Classic Investment Trust as a publicly-quoted investment product on a leading over-the-counter marketplace.