Bitcoin has continued to eat into the altcoin markets as its
dominance has hit a seven month high just shy of 56 percent.
Bitcoin Dominating Markets
Cryptocurrencies are pulling back this Monday morning but
Bitcoin, which hit a new 2019 high over the weekend, is still firmly in control
and leading markets. It is the first time since September last year that BTC
has held such a large share of the markets. All momentum is with the king of
crypto at the moment as BTC continues to make higher lows and higher highs.
Resistance at the 50 week moving average was broken late on
Friday when BTC
surged to a new 2019 high of $5,880. It held gains for the best part of the
weekend before starting to pull back during Asian trading on Monday morning. At
the time of writing BTC was trading at just below $5,700, down almost 2% on the
same time yesterday.
Over the past seven days Bitcoin
has gained a solid 7.5% which has pushed total market capitalization up to
new highs for the year. The 2019 yearly high for Bitcoin is at the same place
as 2018’s yearly lows;
Altcoins, however, have not enjoyed the same momentum and many of them are beating a retreat at the moment.
Altcoins Retreat on Monday Morning
Litecoin
has lost the most in the top ten shedding 6 percent as it falls back below
$73. This has caused LTC to drop down to sixth spot as EOS, which has only lost
3.5 percent, flips it for fifth spot. Market caps for both coins are very
similar at $4.5 billion so these two could be jockeying for a while.
All altcoins are suffering at the moment with Cardano, Monero,
IOTA, Ethereum Classic, NEO and NEM all dropping 4 to 5 percent. Cosmos, which
has been surging recently, has also dumped today falling 9 percent back to $4.60.
Total crypto market cap has dumped $8 billion from its weekend highs and is currently at $180 billion. Global stock markets are also teetering this morning as Trump’s trade tariffs get ramped up. CNBC host Ran NeuNer pointed out that the Hang Seng is already down over 1000 points and Dow futures are down 500;
Crypto is often seen as a safe haven when traditional financial markets are in trouble. This may well provide the big boost Bitcoin needs to break above $6,000, however at the moment the bears are back in play on crypto markets.
