Crypto Market Booms, Bitcoin (BTC) Well Above $3,600
For the first time in what seems like a millennium, the cryptocurrency market has posted stellar performance two days in a row. At the time of writing, per data compiled by Live Coin Watch, the aggregate value of all cryptocurrencies has risen to $122.7 billion — a $7.1 billion increase from Monday and a $19 billion increase since the weekend’s average. A bulk of this market cap shift can be attributed to altcoins’ monumental gains, catalyzed by an influx of buy-side volume ($9.8 billion 24-hour volumes) with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Tron (TRX) both posting double-digit gains that would make leverage traders envious.
Crypto assets performed so well that BTC market dominance fell to 53.14%, down from the 54% posted yesterday. Regardless, Bitcoin has seen its fair share of legs to the upside in the past day. After range trading around the $3,500 yesterday, the prominent cryptocurrency began to surge on Tuesday afternoon, moving above $3,500 to $3,640 in 30 minute’s time. And since that move, which occurred around two hours ago, BTC has been on the up-and-up, now finding itself above $3,700 on Coinbase, with seeming intent to head higher.
At the time of writing, BTC is up 5% in the past 24 hours, with this respectable uptick being backed by a jaw-dropping $6 billion in trading volume.
However, not everyone is convinced that crypto’s so-called “relief rally” will last. Singapore-based Stephen Innes, the head of Asia Pacific trading at Oanda, recently noted that in the short-term, cryptocurrencies could post lower lows.
Speaking with MarketWatch on the matter, the trader explained that “looking at the hand that [has been] dealt,” Oanda expects for cryptocurrencies to “trader lower,” until investors can justify and determine proper valuations — or in other words, price discovery. Innes specifically noted that with global markets “veering south, the fact that” crypto-friendly investors haven’t been able to stabilize BTC’s action is a worrying sign.
In an interview with NewsBTC, Innes doubled-down on his belief that negative catalysts will drive prices lower for the time being. The Oanda representative specifically drew attention to governmental intervention as a cause for concern for crypto’s underlying valuation model. Yet, the industry commentator isn’t all too bearish, as Innes explained that eventually, he expects for blockchain technology to garner global adoption, further providing a “solid footing for cryptocurrencies.”
Tron (TRX) Surges 15%
Amid this market recovery, Tron, also known as TRX, saw a strong move to the upside. At the time of writing, the popular coin is up by 13%, moving to become the tenth most capitalized cryptocurrency in existence. And interestingly, unlike a majority of other assets, there are fundamental reasons behind TRX’s sudden move higher.
Binance, for instance, recently revealed that it would be pairing TRX with TUSD, an important step towards improving liquidity in cryptocurrency markets.
CEO Justin Sun, whose brainchild is the Tronix project, recently took to Twitter to report that Tron recently surpassed a key network milestone. This, as depicted below, is the creation of 900,000 mainnet accounts, which comes just 178 after the project migrated from Ethereum to its own native platform.
Congratulations on #TRON mainnet accounts surpassed 900k in 178 days. #TRX $TRX pic.twitter.com/H6TDt1ddKp
— Justin Sun🌞 (@justinsuntron) December 18, 2018
Just days before that, the mainnet surpassed 100 million processed transactions, which indicates that Tron has continued to see monumental levels of interest, in spite of the crypto bear market. This is likely due to the popularity of the network’s dApp offerings. This jaw-dropping milestone came a single day after Tron set a new record of 2.64 million transactions in a single day. On that day, this 2.64 million sum was purportedly 9.6x more than the number of transactions processed on Bitcoin, 4.6x Ethereum, 4.1x XRP, 188x Tether, and 264x Stellar.
#TRON's new record of 2,64 million daily transactions in comparison w/ the Top 5 #crypto👇🏽#TRX 2,646,532 Txs volume is:
9.6 times more than #Bitcoin's 275k
4.6 x #Ethereum's 567k
4.1 x #Ripple's 633k
188 x #Tether's 14k
264 x #Stellar's 10k#IAmDecentralized 🖖🏽#TronFOMO$TRX pic.twitter.com/USVIQ6Jspf— Misha Lederman (@mishalederman) December 15, 2018
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Surpasses Tether, Litecoin
Tuesday’s continued market recovery has seen Bitcoin Cash (BCH), like Tron, perform quite well for itself. As reported by Ethereum World News on the weekend, after last week’s sell-off, the market capitalization of Litecoin (LTC) began to surpass that of BCH.
Now, however, BCH has boomed, posting a 24.55% performance in the past 24 hours, moving above $110 for the first time in days. The asset’s capitalization has now surpassed that of Tether (USDT) and LTC.
Title Image Courtesy of Drew Graham on Unsplash
