Weekends are usually pretty inactive for crypto markets and this one has been no different. Total capitalization has hovered just above $170 billion for the past three days as Bitcoin has failed to register any momentum following last week’s big correction.
Monday morning has brought some movement to markets however as Asian traders get down to business but it is not Bitcoin leading things this time. The $5 billion influx to cryptocurrencies over the past 12 hours or so has been largely down to big moves being made by Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, the fourth and fifth largest crypto assets by market cap.
Bitcoin Cash Spikes 11%
A surge from $275 to just over $305 for BCH has pushed its market cap back up over $5 billion again. Daily volume jumped from $900 million to $1.2 billion a few hours ago as Bitcoin Cash started pumping again, registering an 11% gain on the day.
The top exchange for BCH at the moment is Chinese OEX which has taken over 16% of the total. Hong Kong based OKEx is second as Asian traders load up on Bitcoin Cash today. There have been a number of developments for Bitcoin Cash over the past week including Huobi BCH contracts going live, Liberland’s BCH based merit token reaching $1 million market cap, and several technical upgrades;
Bitcoin Cash is currently trading just over $300 which is double what it was priced at on January first this year. It is not far off the 2019 high of $335 and has again kicked Litecoin and EOS out of fourth place by market cap.
Litecoin Launches by 9%
A pump from $77 to $84 has given Litecoin a 9% boost on the day as volume hits $2.5 billion. Litecoin has now flipped EOS again and retaken fifth spot with a market cap of $5.1 billion. Since the beginning of the year LTC has surged an epic 180% from $30 to its current price level. The network’s hashrate has also recently reached an all-time high as it peaked at 359.43 TH/s on April 4. It is rapidly approaching that level again with a hashrate of 347.54TH/s according to bitinfocharts.com. According to Litecoin.com;
It’s reasonable to assume that there is still greater potential for room to the upside as hashrate has only roughly doubled whilst the Litecoin price has more than quadrupled.
The moves by LTC and BCH have revived crypto markets following a weekend lull in activity. It is not the first time these two altcoins led markets as a similar pattern emerged earlier this month when both digital assets surged together.
The other altcoin getting a big pump at the moment is Tezos which has jumped 16% to $1.14.
