The global average bitcoin price briefly broached the $10,000 mark on Tuesday, largely due to significant premiums on high-volume South Korean exchanges. Meanwhile, the number of cryptocurrencies in the billion-dollar club swelled to a new all-time high — and more are poised to achieve that status soon.
Altogether, it was another record-setting day for the industry, and the total cryptocurrency market cap rose to $310 billion, a new high-water mark that represents a nearly $300 billion increase since the beginning of the year.
Global Bitcoin Price Pierces $10,000
The global average bitcoin price briefly entered five-figure territory this morning, and CoinMarketCap reports that it rose as high as $10,106 before pulling back below this threshold. None of Bitcoin’s USD trading pairs have reached $10,000, although BTC/USD reached a new high of $9,941 on Bitfinex. However, demand has ratcheted up on Korean exchanges, and this demand has driven the bitcoin price as high as $11,000 on Bithumb, enabling the global bitcoin price to temporarily edge past $10,000. At present, bitcoin is priced at a global average of $9,985, which translates into a $166.8 billion market cap.
Ethereum Price Posts Minor Decline
Ethereum has been challenging a psychologically-significant milestone of its own — the $500 threshold, to be exact. Thus far, it has not been able to punch through this barrier, despite rising as high as $493 Monday morning. On Tuesday, ethereum posted a two percent decline, bringing the second-largest cryptocurrency to a present value of $472 and market cap of $45.3 billion.
Billion-Dollar Club Swells to 16
The altcoin markets made a net decline of a few hundred million dollars on Tuesday, but a significant number of mid-cap coins posted notable advances, as evidenced by the growing number of cryptocurrencies that have market caps that exceed $1 billion.
It was a disappointing day for bitcoin forks, and both bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold declined by at least three percent. Ripple, meanwhile, rose by almost seven percent, carrying its market cap back across the $10 billion mark. The litecoin price rose by approximately one percent and is currently trading at $92, but the dash price fell by a similar margin to a present value of $621.
Despite this mediocre performance toward the top of the charts, several mid-cap cryptocurrencies posted remarkable gains. Ethereum classic led the way with a 43 percent surge, raising the ETC price to a new all-time high of $34. IOTA and monero each made a double-digit advance, raising their prices to $1.04 and $185, respectively.
The advance continued outside of the top 10, with 13th-ranked cardano and 16th-ranked stellar climbing by 25 percent and 20 percent, respectively, while the majority of other coins and tokens in this tier posted moderate gains, too.
Following today’s movement, stellar crossed the $1 billion market cap threshold, raising the total number of “crypto unicorns” to 16 — a new all-time high. OmiseGO, zcash, and lisk all currently have market caps of at least $925 million, meaning that the billion-dollar club appears poised to grow to 19 within the near future.