Altcoins Back In Driver's Seat As Bitcoin Price Moves Sideways

Altcoins staged a resurgence yesterday as the price of a single bitcoin rose briefly to pass the $17,000 mark but mostly trended within price levels of around $16,000. At 14:29 UTC, it was trading at $16,343.71, unchanged from its price 24 hours ago.

Ripple, a cryptocurrency which shot up last week, was once again the star performer. It passed a “historic milestone” of sorts by passing the $1 mark earlier this morning. At 13:52 UTC, the cryptocurrency was trading at $1.06, an increase of 37.35%, and had a total market capitalization of $41 billion.

Among other cryptocurrencies, Dash rallied briefly last night, rising by 29.53% to $1,519. As of this writing, it was trading at $1,519, up 1.22% from its price 24 hours ago. The overall market capitalization for cryptocurrencies was $643.8 billion. At 13:56 UTC, the top 10 most-traded cryptocurrencies had the following loss/gain percentages.

The #Flippening That Wasn’t

Given bitcoin cash’s spectacular gains over the last two days, social media was rife with speculation that the bitcoin offshoot would overtake ethereum and, eventually, its parent cryptocurrency. No timeframes were provided, but it seemed that the first event would happen soon enough.

Bitcoin Cash’s valuation moved up to $68 billion, about $13 billion behind ethereum’s market capitalization at that time, around 18:00 UTC yesterday. But it pared back those gains over the course of the day. As of this writing, Bitcoin Cash was trading at $3,653.26, up by 3.26% from its price 24 hours ago, and its market cap was $61 billion. Ethereum was trading at $866.09, approximately a 4% increase from its price 24 hours ago, and had a total market cap of $83 billion.

IOTA Passes $5 Barrier

IOTA, another cryptocurrency that has been making news recently, passed the $5 barrier after news broke that its blockchain, which uses a decentralized acyclic graph (DAG), was being used to develop a proof of concept to verify legal documents in the Dutch city of Haarlem. Other cities in the country, such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, have indicated that they will follow suit. At 14:30 UTC, IOTA was trading at $5.41, unchanged in the last 24 hours, and had a total market cap of $15 billion.

Bitcoin Crashes and Google Trends

Bitcoin’s sliding price has led to articles about an impending crash and, technically, should worry investors. But bitcoin may not be going away anytime soon. According to Google Trends, the cryptocurrency was among the top finance terms for 2017. Bitcoin’s price is directly proportional to Google searches, and a surge in interest has led to the cryptocurrency skyrocketing in price by more than 1,800 percent this year.

It's no wonder then that trading institutions are pressing ahead with plans to introduce the cryptocurrency to their customers. E-Trade announced that it would allow clients to trade bitcoin futures contracts from CBOE. After TD Ameritrade and Ally Invest, it is the third brokerage firm to allow access to bitcoin futures to customers. This is a positive development for bitcoin’s price since it would enable greater liquidity and less volatility.

Investing in cryptocurrencies and other Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”) is highly risky and speculative, and this article is not a recommendation by Investopedia or the writer to invest in cryptocurrencies or other ICOs. Since each individual's situation is unique, a qualified professional should always be consulted before making any financial decisions. Investopedia makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or timeliness of the information contained herein. As of the date this article was written, the author owns 0.001 bitcoin.