Quite a few people were convinced we would soon start to see Bitcoin’s dominance pick up again. That is not the case so far, as the dominance index tells a different story. Moreover, it appears the overall cryptocurrency market cap has now surpassed US$61bn. A staggering amount of money has entered the crypto world this week.
Investors Remain Bullish on Cryptocurrency
The past few weeks have been incredibly positive for cryptocurrency as a whole. Many alternative currencies and tokens have seen their value go up over time. XRP, the digital asset, has seen a similar trend over the past few weeks. All of this goes to show the world of cryptocurrency continues to attract a lot of investors from all over the world. However, the amount of money flowing into Bitcoin directly remains a bit lackluster.
To be more specific, Bitcoin’s market cap represents only 48.9% of the total cryptocurrency cap. That is a rather small amount compared to what it used to be only a few months ago. It appears the ongoing scaling debacle has continued to slow down Bitcoin’s momentum, even though it does not affect the price. This is quite an intriguing development that sparks a lot of discussions.
Interestingly enough, it looks like a few more currencies are pushing toward a US$1bn market cap. Litecoin and NEM are the most recent ones to push to this level. Dash and Ethereum Classic are still far behind, although they can both reach this threshold with a bit of luck. Bitcoin still remains the top dog at nearly US$30bn, though. Ripple – or XRP, in this case – is still holding on to the second position at just under US$13bn despite a lot of opposition. Its market cap is also affected by the ongoing Poloniex issues, allowing prices to be driven down.
It will be quite an uphill battle for alternative currencies, though. As long as people continue to rely on Poloniex despite its issues, volatility will remain a big problem. The platform is unable to handle the influx of new users, yet represents the majority of trading volume. Bittrex lists most of the popular currencies as well and seemingly has no issues so far. It will be interesting to see how this scenario plays out in the end.
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