Monday, April 8 — Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have continued gaining momentum, while most of the top 20 coins by market cap have plunged in the red today.
Ontology (ONT) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are seeing the biggest losses out of the top 20 coins, down 7.6 and 6.4 percent over the past 24 hours at press time, according to CoinMarketCap.
Market visualization from Coin360
The largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has continued to climb today, with its price reaching as high as $5,315 earlier in the day. At press time, Bitcoin is slightly up by 0.4 percent, trading at around $5,171. Having continued hitting multi-month highs, Bitcoin is up 24.4 percent over the past 7 days.
Bitcoin 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
The top altcoin, Ethereum, is seeing the biggest gains among the top 20 coins by market cap, up 5.3 percent over the day. The second-biggest crypto is trading at $177 at press time, up 23.6 percent over the past 7 days.
This weekend, Cointelegraph reported that founder and CEO of Tron (TRX) Justin Sun expressed confidence that the Tron ecosystem will officially collaborate with Ethereum this year.
Ethereum 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Ripple (XRP), the third-top cryptocurrency by market cap, is down 2.3 percent over the past 24 hours at press time, trading at $0.352. The second-top altcoin is still up around 12 percent over the past 7 days.
Ripple 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Total market capitalization amounts to $179 billion, while daily trading volume is about $63 billion at press time.
Total market capitalization 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Recently, a cross-party group of South Korean lawmakers reportedly urged the local government to ease regulations for crypto and blockchain, claiming that the country’s financial regulator was too conservative about the industry.
Earlier on April 5, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone alleged that Bitcoin was at its most overbought level since its record highs in December 2017, when the largest cryptocurrency neared its all-time peak of $20,000. According to McGlone, the recent market growth took place due to a long-term price compression and low volatility.
Yesterday, Ran NeuNer, the host of CNBC‘s CryptoTrader show, expressed a critical stance about publications that still call Bitcoin a bubble. NeuNer suggested that if Bitcoin even was a bubble in 2018, there are no bubbles that pop twice. According to the 2019 Cayman Alternative Investment Summit (CAIS) survey, almost half of investors think that as an asset class, cryptocurrency is a bubble.
The United States stock market slightly rose at press time, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) up 0.15 percent, while the S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (NASDAQ) Composite rose around 0.5 and 0.6 percent, respectively. According to CNBC, the market is anticipating upcoming corporate results, with major United States banks such as JPMorgan and Wells Fargo set to report their latest figures on Friday.
Meanwhile, oil prices rose to their highest level since November 2018 amid OPEC’s ongoing supply cuts, U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, and fighting in Libya, as well as strong U.S. jobs data. International benchmark Brent futures is up 0.4 percent, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil rose around 0.3 percent, according to Oilprice.com.
Gold prices hit a one-week peak today, as the dollar slipped after a report that U.S. wage growth slowed last month, while investors awaited minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s March meeting later this week. Spot gold is up 0.8 percent to $1,301 per ounce, while gold futures rose 0.9 percent to $1,307.
