Bitcoin, Ethereum Prices Post Minor Gains Despite Low Trading Volume
The crypto markets began the week on a positive note, with the majority of top-tier cryptocurrencies achieving minor advances. Both bitcoin price and ethereum price rose 2% to extend their weekend uptrend into the new week, enabling the combined value of all cryptocurrencies to inch across the $130 billion threshold.
The day’s trading was characterized by unusually low trading volume. As CCN.com reported, cryptocurrency trading volume should soon surpass that of Apple, the most liquid company stock. Apple currently averages about $4 billion in daily trading volume, while the crypto markets have a 30-day rolling average of $3 billion.
Within the past 24 hours, however, the combined trading volume of all cryptocurrencies is just $2.25 billion–about $750 million below the average. Notably, no cryptocurrency had a volume greater than $1 billion for either of the past two days, a phenomenon that does not appear to have occurred since July 30 to July 31.
Nevertheless, the markets were still able to achieve modest gains. After beginning the day at $128.6 billion, the crypto market cap gained about $2.7 billion, bringing its present value to $131.3 billion. Most of this progress occurred early Monday morning when the crypto market cap jumped from $129 billion to $131 billion within the span of 30 minutes.
Bitcoin Price Aims for $3,800
The bitcoin price has spent the latter half of the past week attempting to establish support at the $3,800 level, but early Monday morning it was trading at just $3,682. At about 2:00 UTC, however, the bitcoin price leaped nearly $100 to $3,775, eventually reaching $3,799 before tapering to a present value of $3,764. Following the day’s 2% bump, bitcoin now has a market cap of $62.4 billion.
Analysts disagree about what trajectory bitcoin will take in the near future, but one bullish indicator for bitcoin’s long-term potential is Malaysia’s decision to legalize digital currency usage within the country. As CCN.com explained, this could potentially introduce millions of new users to the bitcoin economy.
Ethereum Price Trends Toward $290
Like bitcoin, the ethereum price posted a minor gain for the day, bringing it a few dollars closer to the psychologically-important $300 threshold. However, before it can get to $300, it must hold above $290. Toward that end, the ethereum price 2% on Monday and currently rests at $287. This translates into a $27.2 billion market cap.
Altcoin Markets Stable
The altcoin markets entered the new week on relatively stable footing, with only one cryptocurrency in the top 10 making double-digit price movement.
The bitcoin cash price mirrored bitcoin and ethereum, rising 2% to $429. Ripple, litecoin, NEM, and Monero all increased about 1.5%, while IOTA advanced 4%.
Dash and NEO exhibited the greatest price movements. Following last week’s rapid rise, the Dash price declined about 4%, making it the only top 25 cryptocurrency to lose ground.
The NEO price, on the other hand, rose by nearly 11%. This gave NEO the best performance among top 50 cryptocurrencies and enabled it to climb into 10th place in the market cap rankings with a total valuation of about $1.1 billion.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
