The bitcoin price and ethereum price continued to climb on Saturday, ticking up just enough to pass significant thresholds. The wider markets made moderate gains as well, enabling the total cryptocurrency market cap to rise above $175 billion for the first time since the beginning of September.
On Friday, the combined value of all cryptocurrencies crossed the $170 billion checkpoint, highlighting the degree of its recovery since last month’s pullback. It continued to rise throughout the day, eventually reaching a present value of $175.2 billion, placing it just $5 billion below the all-time high it set before the downturn.
Bitcoin Price Inches Above $5,700
JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon broke his self-imposed moratorium on discussing bitcoin after just 24 hours, lashing out at “stupid” bitcoin buyers who he says will “pay the price” when its value crashes to zero. Traders met his rant with little more than a yawn, however, and the bitcoin price ticked up another 1.5%, bringing it across the $5,700 barrier to a present value of $5,732. Bitcoin maintains a market cap of about $95.3 billion, making it several billion dollars larger than Goldman Sachs.
Ethereum Price Surges to $340
The ethereum price dipped as low as $290 during bitcoin’s early-week rally, but the second largest cryptocurrency initiated a bull run of its own during the latter half of the week, and by Friday it had risen to $326. It continued to scale the charts on Saturday, and by the time of writing the ethereum price had climbed to $340, representing a daily gain of 3%. This translates into a market cap of $32.4 billion.
Altcoins Join the Rally
The altcoin markets were hit hard earlier in the week as traders consolidated their holdings into bitcoin. However, altcoins have begun to recover from this downturn, and several have experienced significant gains.
The ripple price rose 6%, bringing its market cap above $10 billion after dipping below that level on Friday. The bitcoin cash price also made minor progress, rising 1% to $318. The litecoin price rose more than 4%, bringing its present value to $61. This is the first time litecoin has surpassed the $60 mark in more than a month.
Sixth-ranked dash rose 3%, raising its price to $314 and market cap to $2.4 billion. NEM increased 5%, while monero leaped to the eighth-place ranking on the heels of a 6% rally that raised its price to $96. The bitconnect price climbed above $200 to set a new all-time high, while NEO dropped to 10th in the rankings despite maintaining its previous-day level.
Bitcoin Dominance Holds Above 50%
This week’s market movements led to a consolidation of the total cryptocurrency market cap into bitcoin. One week ago, bitcoin accounted for 48.9% of the total crypto market cap; after this week’s rally, that number rose as high as 56.6% and currently sits at 53.9%.
Ethereum, meanwhile, saw its share fall by about 1% over the course of the week; at present, ethereum controls approximately 18.9% of the market. Ripple experienced a slight taper, lowering its portion of the market to 4.9%, and bitcoin cash saw its share drop by one-fourth, reducing its slice to 3%.