Bitcoin Shines from the Pack as Market-Wide Correction Continues
Bitcoin continues its recovery, jumping almost 8 percentage points in the last 24 hours and standing out from the pack as the only crypto among the top 10 to post a gain, according to coinmarketcap.com.
Bitcoin’s price was just shy of $2,800 Friday afternoon with nearly a $46 billion market capitalization. The other top 10 cryptos were still in short-term correction mode following last week’s strong rally.
All the top 10 cryptos besides bitcoin were down Friday, mostly in low single digits. The first crypto to post a gain besides bitcoin in the 24-hour period was BitConnect, the number-11 crypto with $428.239 million in market capitalization. BitConnect had a 7.31-point gain when its price reached $68.08.
The next crypto to post a gain was number 17-ranked Tether, netting 0.18 points, giving it a market cap of $319.712 million.
Bitcoin Extends Market Dominance
As of Thursday, bitcoin commanded 48.74% of the total crypto market, with ethereum accounting for 21.52%. Bitcoin has extended its dominance consistently since June 14, when ethereum held 31.58% to bitcoin’s 38.57%.
Bitcoin took a hit earlier in the week when it was announced that a major supporter of bitcoin will be leaving the main network for a new one known as Bitcoin Cash. But the losses were limited compared to the recent gains, and break-out from the declining trend remains intact, despite the continued fears regarding the August 1 fork. In midweek, bitcoin fell by more than 10% off its highs, falling below $2,450, but rebounded off the strong support zone near that level.
Besides Bitcoin Cash, the mining community continues to show strong support for SegWit, which should be implemented shortly. It remains unclear whether or not there will be a hard fork with SegWit2x.
Ninth-ranked Monero, with a market cap of $655.525, posted the smallest loss among the top 10 cryptos, falling only 0.29 points.
Seventh-ranked ethereum classic, with a $1.377 billion market cap, had the second smallest loss at 2.23 points.
Fourth-ranked Litecoin, with a $2.129 billion market cap, suffered a 2.34-point loss, keeping it in solid recovery mode since falling from its July 8 price of $51.27 to $43.95 on July 19.
Ethereum Continues to Struggle
Ethereum lost 3.49 points in the last 24 hours when its price dropped to $194.99, continuing its decline since reaching $333.50 on June 15.
Fourth-ranked Ripple lost 4.35 points when its price fell to $0.165961. Ripple continues to lose ground since falling from a $0.348079 high on May 24, but still well above its pre-Spring-crypto rally price of $0.00000665 on March 20.
Fifth-ranked NEM posted the biggest fall among the top cryptos in the last 24 hours, losing 5.04 points. NEM had been on a rebound since a recent low of $0.09895 on July 17, reaching $0.176446 on July 25. NEM is clearly in a recovery zone since falling from its May 20 high of $0.231659.
Eighth-ranked IOTA posted the second biggest fall among the top 10 cryptos, losing 5.03 points in the 24-hour period.
Sixth-ranked Dash suffered the third biggest loss in the period, losing 4.55 points.
Also read: Bitcoin price recovers past $2,500; is $5,000 in sight?
SEC Report Raises Questions
A question for all cryptos will be how the markets respond to a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report stating that initial coin offerings (ICO) are subject to regulation. The report, which focused on DAO tokens, found that they were a security under U.S. law and thus subject to regulations governing those financial assets. The SEC did not explicitly state that all ICO tokens are securities, only that they could be, but it indicated the SEC will take an active role in ICO regulation. Some fear the impact of regulation on innovation, while others see it is a first step in a maturation process.
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