Markets Update: Cryptocurrency Market Cap Commands $46 Billion

On May 4th, 2017 bitcoiners were not only celebrating Star Wars day but also bitcoin’s galactic rise to US$1620 across global exchanges. However, an hour following the climatic spike bitcoin’s value took a dive dropping to a low of $1445. Since then bitcoin repositioned its trajectory back to the $1570 range, before plunging yet again.

Also read: Las Vegas Strip Club Aims to Use Cryptocurrency for Daily Operations

May the Fourth be With You

Thursday was an eventful day for bitcoin in terms of market value as the currency experienced some significant volatility during the trading day. The day opened with BTC trading at $1540 per token and rose to a high above the $1600 mark mid-afternoon. Moreover, nearly every altcoin market followed suit with bitcoin’s increase as Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and others experienced upward swings in value.

Around 3 PM eastern standard, bitcoin’s fiat value dropped well over a $100 per BTC in less than ten minutes. Another ten minutes later the digital asset bounced back to the $1520 range after hitting $1490. However following the small bounce back bitcoin’s price took another dive to a low of $1445 across many global exchanges.

There weren’t too many reasons behind the price drop as many assumed it was just a correction. However, the dip in value had coincidently occurred at the same time a relatively small U.S. trading exchange Gocelery suspended deposits and withdrawals.

Weekly Headlines

While many bitcoin proponents were focused on the rising price this week, there were also many interesting headlines. For instance, Bitpay announced a partnership with Bitmain Technologies in a “multi-million dollar agreement,” as the firm detailed it will be assisting with open source mining research and development.

Another interesting happening this past week was when Jon Matonis joined the Craig Wright associated Nchain firm. Furthermore, the Australian who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto was recently interviewed by Christoph Bergmann revealing some interesting commentary about bitcoin’s creation, current development, why the 21 million cap was chosen, why Adam Back was credited in the white paper, and his opinion of the block size limit. New discussions on who Craig Wright is and what he is doing has surfaced across many social media platforms over the past 48-hours. 

Meanwhile, mainstream media news outlets such as Bloomberg, Time, Forbes, and CNBC have been highlighting bitcoin’s price rise in their headlines. Most all of the reports discuss Japan’s current relationship with bitcoin and the country’s increasing trade volume. Additionally, bitcoiner’s have been watching a few other governments like Mexico, for instance, prepare legislation similar to Japan’s recent legalization and tax consumption status.

Overall Cryptocurrency Markets Across the Board are Rising in Value Exponentially

Every single cryptocurrency in the top ten largest market capitalizations has seen price spikes over the past 72 hours. The second largest valued cryptocurrency capitalization is held by Ethereum which is currently commanding a market cap of $9 billion at the time of writing. Ether (ETH) is trading at $99 per token seeing a 14 percent increase during the morning of May 5. Ripple (XRP) has jumped quite a bit as each XRP has doubled in price over the past 24-hours. One XRP is currently 10 cents, and the Ripple’s market cap now captures $3.6 billion.

Litecoin is also rising, and it probably is due to its recent Segwit implementation coupled with Coinbase adding the cryptocurrency to its market options. Litecoin (LTC) has finally crossed the billion dollar market cap line with $1.3 billion, and each LTC is currently worth $27. Dash has seen a mediocre rise but nonetheless is trading at $103 per token. Other notable increases in the top ten include Ethereum Classic (ETC) $7, NEM $0.07, Monero (XMR) $29, Golem (GNT) $0.26, and Augur (REP) $17. Overall all 717 cryptocurrencies are valued at an all-time high of $46 billion dollars.

Even though bitcoin’s price took a significant drop on May 4, the market is licking its wounds and rebounding. Moreover, for the first time in history bitcoin’s 24-hour trade volume has crossed $1 billion USD worth of bitcoins traded daily. Currently, bitcoin’s price is slowly rising back up towards the $1600 range, and it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next.

What do you think about the price of bitcoin and various altcoins over the past few days? Let us know in the comments below.

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