Both the bitcoin and ethereum prices declined on Wednesday, causing the global crypto markets to slouch back into the red.
This development was disappointing for investors hoping that the early-week gains were indicative of a renewed upward trend in the market. Nevertheless, investors have a reason to be hopeful. As CCN.com reported, South Korea plans to release a set of bills officially legalizing and regulating cryptocurrencies; this development could give cryptocurrencies across the board a boost.
The crypto markets have spent the last week struggling to stay above the $100 billion threshold, and that fight continued on Wednesday. Total cryptocurrency market cap began the day at over $103 billion. However, they steadily declined throughout the day until they once again fell below $100 billion. At present, the total crypto market valuation was about $99 billion.
Wednesday’s downturn only did minor damage to the bitcoin price, which declined 2.25% to $2,554. This remains about $450 lower than bitcoin’s mid-June high, but it nevertheless represents a seven-day increase of $20. Bitcoin’s market cap now sits at just under $42 billion.
Although bitcoin did not quite escape the downturn unscathed, it still fared better than Ethereum. The ethereum price fell 8.5% to $262, dropping its market cap to just $24.4 billion. Significantly, ethereum trading volume also dropped below bitcoin trading volume. Ethereum volume was $744.9 million, while bitcoin’s was $921.4 million.
Most of the top 100 altcoins followed bitcoin and ethereum’s retreat. The Ripple price declined by 2% to $0.255, while Ethereum Classic dropped 5% to $17.42. The downturn clobbered NEM, BitShares, and EOS. NEM dropped 8.5% to $0.173, but investors should take solace in the fact that NEM has still made positive movement since last week. The BitShares price fell nearly 15% to $0.222, causing its market cap to drop well below $600 million.
The EOS token was one of the coins hardest hit by today’s trading. On Wednesday, the EOS price fell 16% to $2.86. This was the second consecutive day in the red for EOS, who rocketed into the market cap top 10 after a record-setting ICO. Considering EOS was trading at about $1 when it hit the exchanges on July 1, it is likely investors are just cashing out some of the easy gains they made when EOS briefly climbed to $5.40 on July 3. EOS now places 12th on the market cap charts.
However, a few altcoins swam against the tide. Litecoin rose to an all-time high of nearly $56 before settling down to $52. This represents a 3.6% 24-hour increase for the litecoin price. Anonymity-centric Dash and Monero also pushed forward into positive territory, rising 4.7% and 3.5% respectively.
Today’s events pushed the Flippening even further out of sight as ethereum shed market cap weight at a greater rate than bitcoin. Bitcoin market cap dominance rose to 42.2%, while ethereum’s dropped to 24.8%. Ripple’s market share held mostly steady at 9.9%, while litecoin climbed to 2.7%.
Ethereum’s market cap is now only 58% as large as bitcoin’s. Ethereum is still 250% the size of 3rd-ranked Ripple, but it is losing steam in its quest to supplant bitcoin as the dominant cryptocurrency, at least in the short-term.