By CCN Markets: The net valuation of the cryptocurrency market on Friday flew above $300 billion for the first time in the last 372 days.
Data assembled by CoinMarketCap.com shows that the cryptocurrency market capitalization touched approx $303.42 billion as of 1137 UTC today, its highest since June 13, 2018. That brought the market’s net bottom-rebound to as much as 196 percent, including a 143 percent gain on a year-to-date basis.
A massive chunk of the cryptocurrency market’s gains on Friday came from bitcoin. The dominant digital asset today came closer to testing the $9,900 level, bringing its market capitalization to $175.27 billion as of 1310 UTC. The move helped to revive the bullish sentiment in the altcoin market, with some cryptocurrencies posting more 24-hour gains than bitcoin itself. They included Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, which rose by 7.69 percent in the last 24 hours, and Bitcoin Cash, which jumped about 7 percent at the same time.
What Pumped the Market?
It appears bitcoin drove the rest of the cryptocurrency market higher. But the world’s leading cryptocurrency itself took cues from the events unfolding on a macroeconomic level.
Bitcoin’s price rise came only a few hours after the Federal Reserve’s dovish stance towards the financial market. The US central bank signaled that it would cut interest rates following the July meeting. The move drove $17.87 billion worth of capital into the equity funds, establishing the highest weekly inflow in the last three months.
The cryptocurrency derivative market also gained substantially from a more positive global outlook. The bitcoin futures (XBT/USD) set to expire in September this year breached the $10,000 level, according to data assembled by Skew. On CME, the bitcoin futures total open interest reached to its all-time high of $273 million notional yesterday from $250 million recorded on June 17.
CME Bitcoin futures (BTC) shows growing signs of institutional interest | Source: CME
The bullish XBT/USD statistics on CME showed growing signs of institutional investment in bitcoin, confirming that the asset nobody was talking about last year is now more upbeat than the US equities.
“In a few months from now, it won’t matter whether you bought bitcoin at $8,000, $10,000 or even $12,000,” said Charlie Shrem, the founder of Bitcoin Foundation. “What will matter is whether you bought Bitcoin at all.”
Click here for a real-time bitcoin price chart.
This post was last modified on (Eastern Time): 21/06/2019 11:23
