Bitcoin Price Holds at $4,800 as Altcoins Plot Recovery

The bitcoin price held above $4,800 on Tuesday, bringing it one step closer to reaching $5,000 and setting a new all-time high. The ethereum price declined for the day, but it managed to recover above $300 after a mid-day dip. Meanwhile, the altcoin markets began to plot their recovery after losing significant ground to bitcoin during yesterday’s trading.

Chart from CoinMarketCap

Altogether, the markets added about $2.7 billion, with bitcoin accounting for virtually all of that advance. After beginning the day at $150.8 billion, the total cryptocurrency market cap has risen to a present value of $153.5 billion. However, what this figure masks is that when you take bitcoin out of the equation, the markets actually lost about $1.1 billion, which is why bitcoin has been able to raise its dominant market share to 52.2% of the total crypto market cap.

Chart from CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin Price Targets $5,000

The bitcoin price appears poised to make its second run at $5,000, and perhaps this time it will sustain the advance. When the day began, bitcoin was already on an incline, having broken through the $4,500 barrier the day before. Once $4,500 was in its rear-view mirror, the bitcoin price began to scale the charts with ease, eventually extending as high as $4,878 on Monday evening. The bitcoin price has thus far been unable to break past a global average of $4,900 — although it climbed to $5,000 on Bithumb — and is currently trading at $4,820. This represents a single-day advance of 5% and gives bitcoin a market cap of $80.1 billion.

Bitcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Ethereum Price Claws Back to $300

Like most cryptocurrencies, ethereum plunged on Monday as traders and investors began to consolidate their holdings into bitcoin. However, the ethereum price led the altcoin markets to a bit of a latter-day recovery, and ethereum climbed back to just above the $300 level. Ethereum is now trading at $301, which translates into a market cap of $28.6 billion.

Ethereum Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Ripple Price Rally Stalls

The altcoin markets remained mostly negative on Tuesday, although many cryptocurrencies exhibited signs of a slight recovery from their mid-day lows.

Altcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

One outlier is ripple, which had been on a week-long bull run that carried its price as high as $0.277 — a 7-day increase of more than 25%. That rally stalled on Tuesday, and the ripple price declined 7% to $0.251 as investors await a potential announcement that could occur at next week’s Ripple Swell conference.

Ripple Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin cash ended the day at a 1% deficit after briefly falling as low as $289. The litecoin price, meanwhile, declined 3% to $50. Dash fared slightly worse, falling 4% to $286, but NEM managed to rise 8% after it was announced that several cryptocurrency exchange platforms and services — most notably ShapeShift — were adding support for NEM. The NEO price dipped 5% to just below $30.

Monero fell 3% but actually rose to 9th in the market cap rankings because IOTA’s 5% decline pulled its market cap below $1.3 billion. Meanwhile, bitconnect continued to stealthily climb the charts, rising 7% to become the 12th current member of the $1 billion market cap club.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Last modified: March 4, 2021 5:00 PM

Josiah Wilmoth

Josiah is the former U.S. Editor at CCN.com, where he focused on financial markets. He lives in rural Virginia. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email him directly at josiah.wilmoth(at)ccn.com.