The crypto markets made a net decline today, after — for the first time in three weeks — the bitcoin price did not set an all-time high on Friday. Instead, bitcoin posted a minor decline toward $5,800 and almost every top-tier cryptocurrency followed its example. Bitcoin cash, however, surged to its highest mark in nearly two weeks.
Altogether, the total cryptocurrency market cap posted a 24-hour decline of about $2 billion. After entering the day at $171.7 billion, the crypto market cap ebbed and flowed throughout the day, but it eventually settled down below the $170 billion mark to a present value of $169.7 billion.
Bitcoin Price Stalls at $5,800
On each of the last two Fridays, the bitcoin price had surged to cross another significant threshold and set a new all-time high. First, bitcoin surmounted the psychologically-important $5,000 mark, then, to almost everyone’s surprise, it followed that up the next week with a surge past $6,000. To date, however, the bitcoin price has been unable to hold above $6,000 — a mark that Wall Street strategist Tom Lee has set as his mid-2018 price target.
Nevertheless, the bitcoin price has flirted with that threshold throughout the week, even rising as high as $5,988 early this morning. However, this brief rally stalled, and the bitcoin price has fallen to a present value of $5,819, which represents a daily decline of 1.5%. Bitcoin now has a market cap of $96.9 billion.
Ethereum Price Hovers Near $300
The ethereum price continued to hover near the $300 mark, ultimately posting a 24-hour decline of about one-half of one percent. Ethereum is currently trading at a global average of $298, which gives the second-largest cryptocurrency a market cap of $28.4 billion.
Bitcoin Cash Rallies
The majority of top 10 cryptocurrencies posted minor daily declines that were remarkably consistent. Ripple, litecoin, bitconnect, and NEO all dropped about 1%, while dash, NEM, and monero each pulled back 2%.
Nevertheless, one cryptocurrency defied this trend: bitcoin cash. The bitcoin cash price had experienced a steady decline since mid-August, eventually reaching a low near $300. However, the bitcoin cash price has climbed more than 10% in the past week — and 7% in the past 24 hours alone — to increase to $367. This is the highest mark bitcoin cash has held in nearly two weeks, and it increased the BCH market cap to $6.1 billion.
It is not immediately clear what is fueling this rally, but one theory is that the bitcoin gold — another fork of bitcoin — is trading at just $125 during its early days on the exchanges. Some analysts believed that if bitcoin gold gained any traction, it would come at the expense of bitcoin cash because conventional wisdom says that subsequent bitcoin forks will have diminishing returns. But since bitcoin gold does not currently appear to be a threat, it may be giving traders a modicum of optimism about bitcoin cash’s potential.